The actions of a conscientious neighbor, followed by quick and effective work by Jackson Police, were key factors in solving a residential burglary within a matter of several hours on Monday evening, July 19.
Police arrested and charged T.J. Duncan, 21, of Jackson, and plan to file felony-level Burglary charges against him as the result of a burglary at the residence of Diane Hickey at 200 Florence Ave. in the Jackson Heights subdivision.
Mrs. Hickey reported the burglary at 5:05 p.m. after arriving home to find her house had been entered and ransacked. She was able to see that some jewelry had been stolen, but apparently nothing else. It was later determined that five necklaces, two rings, three pairs of earrings and two single earrings had been stolen.
A short time later, a neighbor told police that he had become suspicious earlier in the day when he saw a young man walk from behind the fence on Mrs. Hickey's property and leave in a car that had been parked nearby on Anderson Drive. The alert neighbor wrote the license number on a napkin and passed along the information to police.
After learning who the owner of the car was, the police immediately identified Duncan as "a person of interest."
Duncan, as it turned out, was wanted on a warrant for a probation violation issued by the Jackson County Municipal Court. With the cooperation and participation of Court personnel, Duncan was arrested within an hour at a relative's house near Jackson.
In a subsequent interview, Police say that Duncan admitted entering the house and later offered to show where he dumped the stolen jewelry in a ditch along Standpipe Road. Police explained that Duncan dumped the jewelry when he discovered it was not pure gold.
