Three Baldwin Borough teen-age boys have confessed to burglarizing five homes since late December, taking whiskey, cigars and cash when they should have been in school, police said Tuesday.
The boys, who are 17, 15 and 14 years old, are friends who have "cut school a lot" this year, police Det. Sgt. Dan Turner said.
Their truancy helped police find them.
Turner said police received an anonymous tip, which named one of the boys and said "he might be involved in break-ins — if we had any."
Since all the burglaries were done late in the morning, police Juvenile Officer Tony Cortazzo looked at school absentee records for the boy named in the tip, as well as for his friends.
Police said people in the neighborhoods at the times of the burglaries gave descriptions of youths that matched the boys'. And one "good tennis shoe print" found in the mud outside one residence matched a shoe one of the boys was wearing, Turner said.
All five boys confessed to police, and have given back "a decent amount" of what they took, but police expect to recover still more of the money and jewelry taken, Turner said.
The five have one thing in common, Turner said: "None of them likes to go to school."
They didn't say exactly why they decided to break into houses instead, but Turner speculated their reason was "easy money — or so they thought."
"With money in their pockets, they were doing the things they wanted to do," he said.
Turner declined to give specifics because police are still recovering what the boys took, gave to others and purchased.
The two older boys were involved in all five burglaries and the 14-year-old was involved in two of them, police said.
The boys broke into houses on Julie, Macek, Elmwood, Charlotte and Green Glen drives between Dec. 20 and Feb. 22. The loot included more than $1,200 in cash and coins, a bottle of Royal Crown whiskey, jewelry worth more than $5,000, CDs, DVDs and a shotgun and shells.
Turner said police recovered the shotgun, which the boys had not fired.
All five were charged with burglary, theft, criminal conspiracy and receiving stolen property. Baldwin police arrested the 15-year-old yesterday, the 14-year-old Friday and the 17-year-old on Feb. 27.
All were released to the custody of their parents. Their hearings in juvenile court have not yet been set.
Turner said besides truancy, the two younger boys have been in trouble for taking items from unlocked cars. The 17-year-old has not been in trouble with police before, he said.
