Sunday’s Asbury Park Press had a story that took a closer work at the detective work that led last month to the indictment of alleged Red Bank serial burglar Mauro Vasquez-Galvan.
The article focuses on the detailed effort to trace the origins of some 360 pieces of suspected booty found in the 26-year-old defendant’s apartment after police arrested him during a stakeout last June.
From the Press:
It was the extensive work of detectives, especially Sgts. Eliot Ramos and Michael Frazee, that authorities say uncovered the eight-month crime spree of Vasquez-Galvan, who initially stole items from cars, but then began burglarizing homes and photographing sleeping women.
“They did a great, great job,” said their boss, Capt. Stephen McCarthy. “It was good, solid police work on their part, but they went the extra step that made it possible to solve these cases and to bring a much stronger case against him.”
Last month, a grand jury handed up a 57-count indictment against Vasquez-Galvan, charging him with burglarizing and trying to break into homes and cars in the borough between October 2006 and June. He is also facing charges of theft, peering and invasion of privacy, according to the indictment.
They found more than 360 pieces of potential evidence, including electronics, jewelry and photographs, according to authorities.
Detectives hauled everything back to headquarters, where they photographed each item, noted make, model and serial numbers, and created a master list of evidence, police said.
Then the sergeants and four detectives divided up roughly 40 unsolved vehicle burglary cases. They compared the stolen items in those reports to the evidence list in the Vasquez-Galvan case to search for similarities, police said.
When they found a match, they called in victims and asked them if they could positively identify the property.
For example, some victims whose iPods had been stolen gave police the names of the songs on their play lists.
Police said they also sent a list of serial numbers to Apple, and the company contacted a few owners who had registered their iPods with warranty cards. The company advised those customers to call borough police.
Police said they did the same with other electronic items, including a satellite radio.
By August, police said they had enough evidence to charge Vasquez-Galvan with vehicle burglaries. Eighteen of those 19 victims were women, according to a news release issued when the borough man was indicted.
Next, detectives said they began sorting through the photographs that were in cameras, albums and a digital frame found at Vasquez-Galvan’s home.
