Webcam catches burglar as he rifles Spenard home

By MEGAN HOLLAND
Anchorage Daily News

(Published: February 9, 2006)

Woman laid high-tech trap after previous break-in

When Paula Cairns' apartment was burglarized in January, she worried the thief might return for a second helping. The prowler had taken some prized possessions like her jewelry but left behind valuable electronic equipment.

So on a tip from the responding Anchorage police officer, the 58-year-old office worker laid an inexpensive but high-tech trap: a Web camera and a motion detector connected to her home computer, which would dial a cell phone and e-mail images if someone was in her home.

On Saturday, her trap sprang -- and minutes after a thief entered her Spenard apartment and packed up her belongings in a backpack, police nailed the suspect near her driveway.

"I'm not at all a computer whiz," Cairns said, proud that she helped catch him.

Cairns' apartment was initially broken into Jan. 19 -- the first time in the four years she has lived in her efficiency apartment near Tudor Road and Minnesota Drive, she said. She bought the webcam after her neighbors were also hit, she said.

Cairns spent $129 for the equipment and software. She placed the camera, which is no bigger than a coffee cup, on top of her computer monitor, with a clear view of her small apartment. At first, she got a stream of false alarm e-mails and phone calls from the motion detector alerting her that something was happening. Cars driving by and changing the shadows in her home set it off. "It was too sensitive. We had to play around with it a lot," she said.

Last Saturday, Cairns was at work when the burglar struck and her computer setup began performing. The webcam snapped a series of photos of a man wearing black gloves and a black and yellow jacket busting into her apartment through a window. The device e-mailed the photos and called the cell phone of Cairns' friend, just as it had been programmed to do.

Cairns said her friend thought, at first, it was another false alarm when his phone rang. When it went off again, though, he decided to check his e-mail. "And sure enough, he could see the guy looking through my stuff," Cairns said. Her friend called 911.

The video showed the burglar walking around Cairns' home and quickly rifling through a large cabinet, charging documents filed in Anchorage District Court say.

The burglar cut the webcam cord, but it is not clear whether he knew he was being photographed, although a red flashing light on the camera probably caught his attention, Cairns said. "Next time, I'm going to cover that bit with some tape," she said.

When police arrived, they recognized 19-year-old Rusty Parrish, who was on release facing a felony theft charge in a different case and who they have run into in other theft and burglary related offenses, the court documents say. The backpack he was carrying was stolen with several other items from a vehicle that morning, they say.

Parrish was charged with first-degree burglary, second-degree theft and third-degree theft. He may also be responsible for other burglaries in the Spenard and Jewel Lake areas, the documents say.

Parrish has not been charged with the first burglary at Cairns' home, and police do not know if he was connected to it.

Police spokesman Lt. Paul Honeman said Anchorage typically has about four burglaries a day. There were 134 burglaries in January 2005; preliminary numbers for January 2006 indicate there was an increase to 162.

Police applaud Cairns' efforts. "I would recommend anything you can do to prevent a burglary within reason," Honeman said.

Richard Coan, a computer area manager at Best Buy in South Anchorage, said more and more customers are buying webcams, but he attributes most of the sales to families of soldiers headed to Iraq who want to video conference. Cameras range from around $40 to more than $100, he said.

Cairns said, "My biggest thrill is that he can't do this to anyone else now."

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