By Charles W. Kim, Packet Media Group
SOUTH BRUNSWICK — Police charged a New Brunswick man last week with allegedly committing five burglaries in three different towns and suspect he may be involved in more than a dozen similar crimes on the Route 27 corridor.
Walter Hastings, 50, was arrested at 10 a.m. June 8 at the Howard Johnson’s Motel on Route 1 in New Brunswick by detectives from South Brunswick and New Brunswick, according to South Brunswick Sgt. James Ryan.
Sgt. Ryan said that Mr. Hastings tried to flee the rooms he was renting at the motel when police arrived, but was captured by officers on the scene.
Police reportedly recovered items at the motel believed to have been stolen from homes in New Brunswick earlier that morning, according to police.
The arrest comes two weeks after South Brunswick and Milltown police arrested Jihad Boumansour, 50, of that township, and charged him with receiving stolen property after finding items believed to have been taken from homes in South Brunswick, according to police.
Mr. Boumansour, who was released on a summons May 23, helped lead police to Mr. Hastings, according to police.
The arrests are the result of a collaborative effort from several different agencies investigating a rash of overnight burglaries from Piscataway to Princeton along the Route 27 corridor.
Those agencies included; South Brunswick, Princeton Borough, Princeton Township, Franklin Township and representatives from the prosecutor’s offices in Middlesex, Mercer and Somerset counties.
”We were happy to participate in the task force and we are going through and reviewing our open cases to see if we can tie the suspect to any of those cases and hopefully resolve them,” said Sgt. Michael Cifelli, community services bureau of the Princeton Township Police Department.
Most of the burglaries took place during the overnight hours with some of the residents sleeping in the victimized homes, according to police.
Two additional burglaries were reported in Princeton Township just last week, according to Sgt. Cifelli.
In many of the cases, the suspect usually entered the residence through an unlocked rear sliding door and took electronics and other items, according to police.
”This is every person’s worst nightmare. Your family is sleeping at home when someone walks in because a sliding door is left unlocked,” South Brunswick Chief of Police Raymond Hayducka said in a statement Monday. “This suspect presented a clear and present danger in every home he entered and getting him off the street was the priority of every officer involved. His capture should bring comfort to every resident.”
Sgt. Ryan said police believe Mr. Hastings can be linked to more than a dozen of these break-ins because of the similarities in the way the crimes were carried out.
Mr. Hastings is lodged at the Middlesex County Adult Correction Center in North Brunswick in lieu of $160,000 bail.
According to the State Department of Corrections website, Mr. Hastings served a year and seven months from a 2009 conviction for theft and selling drugs in a school zone. He was released from that sentence in May 2011.
Packet Media Group reporter Victoria Hurley-Shubert contributed to this report.
