By Karen Zautyk
Observer Correspondent
KEARNY –
On Christmas Eve, Kearny police reported, a Windsor St. home was burglarized by a thief who gained access through a window after stacking a bunch of pavers below it and climbing in.
The perp took jewelry and $100 in change.
The police took fingerprints, which Det. Ray Lopez found on the windowpane and on a glass jar that had held the coins, The prints were sent to the State Police, which confirmed they belonged “to a local resident we were familiar with,” Capt. Stephen Durkin told The Observer.
The KPD then obtained both an arrest warrant and a search warrant for the suspect’s home.
Last Thursday, at 5:30 p.m., Dets. Michael Gonzalez and John Telle arrested 22-year-old Joseph Ferguson of Kearny at Wilson Ave. and Maple St. At headquarters, Ferguson reportedly admitted to not only the Dec. 24 crime but also four other burglaries in the town: Dec. 19, on Halstead St.; Dec. 30, on Windsor St.; Jan. 2, at Belgrove Drive and Bergen Ave.; “and a Maple St. burglary that was never reported to us,” Durkin said. That one, the captain said, occurred “a couple of months ago.”
Ferguson was charged with four counts of burglary and theft and was remanded to the Hudson County Jail in lieu of $25,000 bail, with no 10% option.
Sidelight: The Jan. 13 edition of The Observer carried a report on the Belgrove Drive crime. The burglar had gained entry to a ground-floor apartment by smashing a window, cutting himself in the process.
Police followed a blood trail along Belgrove, collecting stained tissues the thief had apparently used on his wounds. That evidence and the blood on the window glass has been sent to the State Police lab for DNA analysis.
Durkin said that Ferguson told police he had read the story in The Observer:
“He said he knew we had his blood and we’d be coming to get him.”
