Sonoma Serial Car Burglar Reminds Officer of Dmitri Storm Crime Spree

As many as 20 recent incidents of auto burglary were cataloged on one night recently, which may be related to an earlier rash of similar crimes in late May, according to the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office Property Crimes Investigation Unit.

The first report came early in the morning on Friday, May 31, when a resident in the 100 block of Trinity Road woke up when his dog growled, and heard someone starting his truck.

He looked out the window to see someone making a series of three-point turn in his driveway, trying to turn the truck around to leave the property.

“It was almost like a compound up there,” said Sgt. Michael Raasch of the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office about the crime scene. “It’s a big property with a huge brick wall and a locked gate.” None of that, nor the dog, had deterred the suspect.

The resident yelled at the suspect who was unable to get the truck out through the victim’s automatically closing iron gate. The gate pinned the truck between the cab and the bed, and the suspect leaped out, dropping what looked like a gun as he ran away.

It turned out to be a BB gun, and several garage door openers were found nearby as well.

The resident called 911 and responding deputies arrived on the scene to set up a perimeter, but the suspect was nowhere to be found. The victim described the  suspect as a thin white male, 6 feet tall, possibly in his 20s, last seen wearing a tan Carhartt-type work jacket with a white hooded sweatshirt.

As a result of the incident Sheriff’s deputies began to search the area and found at least 17 cars with open doors, doors ajar, dome lights on or other evidence that they had been burgled sometime during the night.  

The vehicles were located in driveways on Trinity Road, Sylvia Drive and Bonnie Drive in Glen Ellen.

The suspect is thought to have gone so far as to scale a closed and locked gate to reach a car, finding a garage door opener in that car which allowed him to reach another vehicle inside the attached garage.

Stolen from the two vehicles were loose change, car keys and a GPS device. The residents remained asleep.

Sgt. Raasch recalled a similar series of incidents in the same part of the county a few days earlier, including a rash of petty thefts from unlocked vehicles on Bennett Valley Road, Grange Road and Los Alamos Road that are most likely related to the same suspect or suspects.

“They’ve got the same MO [modus operandi],” he said. Though there was no evidence that multiple suspects are involved, said Raasch, that is usually the case.

Sgt. Raasch then added, “Remember the Dmitiri Storm case? These are a lot like that, but he’s in jail and will be for a long time.”

Storm was arrested in Berkeley in early May after a multi-county crime spree in Santa Cruz, Monterey, Santa Clara, Marin and Sonoma counties. Storm is also a suspect in home thefts as well as auto burglaries and theft, and is charged with assault stemming from his arrest on May 9.

“None of the vehicles have been broken into,” emphasized Raasch. “They’ve all been left unlocked.” He  has stolen GPS devices, vehicle keys, garage door openers, and loose change.

“A couple times he’s hit the jackpot,” said Raasch. “Once he got about $150, and another time about $100 that had been left in the car.” Curiously, left behind have been items of more value, including laptops, iPhones, and iPads. 

Also similar has been the relative difficulty in reaching the cars, many of which have been behind gates or up long drives, with dogs on the property.

“Sometimes he’s stolen the keys, but left the vehicle,” said Raasch.

At least three vehicles that have been stolen were recovered on the east side of Santa Rosa or at other crime scenes, indicating the suspect had taken the cars to go to another neighborhood and get back to work.

“It would be nice if people would lock their cars up and take their valuables with them,” said Raasch. “It would save them a lot of headaches later on.”

Sgt. Raasch invites people who may have experienced similar car burglaries or who know anything about the suspect to contact the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office Property Crimes Investigation Unit in Santa Rosa, (707) 565-2838