Investigators for two suburban police departments expressed hope late Monday that the arrests of two teenagers would help close the books on a spate of burglaries in Palatine and Arlington Heights.
According to Palatine police, Douglas Gregor, 17, a former Palatine resident who has been roaming the village since leaving his Missouri home about two months ago, was arrested late Saturday morning while hiding in a storage area of the Manchester Oaks apartments.
Arrested with Gregor was a 15-year-old Palatine High School drop-out, police said.
When police discovered the teens, they found a number of items, including jewelry, that linked the youths to several residential and vehicular break-ins since October, Palatine Police Cmdr. Bob Haas said. Police said the boys picked homes at random, knocking on doors to make sure no one was home and breaking in through basement windows.Haas said both admitted to burglarizing as many as 100 cars.
Officials in Arlington Heights, which has seen more than a dozen residential break-ins since mid-October, identified the youths as suspects in at least two residential burglaries and one car break-in.