ST. LOUIS – Five jewelry store break-ins have happened in less than two months, and so far, no arrests have been made in any of the cases.
At this point, all of the police jurisdictions that are investigating these cases tell 5 On Your Side they don’t have any new information to share, but are still following leads.
“These are not the norm,” said Matt Vogel, a criminologist at UMSL.
In the six years he’s been studying crime, Vogel said he’s never seen so many jewelry store break-ins in such a short time period. He believes, all five share a few common characteristics.
“There's clearly something going on in St. Louis right now,” Vogel said. “These seem to be well planned.”
They also all appear to be in stand-alone buildings or strip malls. “I'm not sure if they're being intentionally targeted or if they're being targeted because they're in strip malls because it's easier to get away,” he said.
Three of them all took place on the same road – Olive Boulevard.
Feb 1: Two men break into Timekeepers in Olivette.
March 19th: Four men rob Vincent’s Jewelers in Creve Coeur.
March 20th: An unknown number of thieves steal from Genovese’s overnight in Creve Coeur.
“There's something connecting these crimes,” Vogel said.
Looking back at the surveillance video, Vogel sees a lot of similarities between what happened at Timekeepers and Vincent’s.
“From what I saw the one guy comes straight in, jumps over the counter, knows what he's doing to get the situation under control so to speak. The other guys go straight to the cases, it appears,” he notices.
Vogel believes that shows these criminals may have profiled these stores before and knew their way around.
“Brazen daytime sort of heists, where the guys walk in with high-powered guns and intimidating their way in and smashing into cases and taking the jewels,” Vogel said.
The fourth break-in happened March 27th at Kessler Mroz Jewelry in Downtown St. Louis. Much like Genovese’s, police say three men broke in and escaped in a dark-colored SUV while the store was closed.
“Which leads me to believe there are not 4 separated isolated incidents,” he said.
Then there’s the most recent case at the Diamond Store in Clayton. Vogel said that one doesn’t fit the profile of the others because it was robbed by just one person, instead of a group of men. Most of these crimes may be able to be solved because of eyewitnesses.
“It strikes me that it would be easy to identify a lot of the characteristics based on some witness accounts, more so than these things that are happening in the evening,” said Vogel.
If you have any information on any of these cases, you are urged to call CrimeStoppers. Their number is (314) 725-8477.
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