Suspect tied to two dorm burglaries

University Police detectives are currently investigating a possible link between two recent burglaries in University dormitories. The first burglary occurred early in the morning on Feb. 13, in the W.E. B. DuBois College House room of Wharton freshman John Taylor. When Taylor returned to his room at about 2:30 a.m., he allegedly found a man, who he identifies as Curtis Owens, in his closet. Taylor confronted the man and asked him what he was doing in his closet. According to Taylor, the man said he was just "looking for a bathroom." When the man left the room, Taylor called University Police. Upon arriving on the scene, police found Owens in a third floor room and arrested him. Engineering sophomore Clayton Wynter, who knew Owens from intramural football, had signed him in earlier that afternoon. Wynter said last night that Owens had just "stopped by to say hi," adding that Owens left his room about four hours after he was signed in. Taylor claims that Owens had stolen $75 dollars from his wallet the night before and an additional dollar that night. University Police are trying to link this burglary with a second which occurred last Saturday at about 10:30 a.m., in College sophomore Althea Prince's Stouffer College House room. Despite a flier released by Residential Living that expressly denies Owens permission to enter any University residence, Stouffer residents said last night that they saw a man who fit Owens' description roaming around Friday night. "I saw him for the first time Friday night," Prince said. "I saw him looking around from door to door." College senior Bill Shrubsall said the man, who called himself Curtis, had been in the dorm before, adding that the man had eaten with him once in Stouffer's separate dining facility. "He's been in the house here between 10 and 12 times that my friends and I have noticed," Shrubsall said. "He acted as if he knew one of my friends." Shrubsall added that the man said he was a student residing in DuBois College House. College freshman Matt Mattioli said he and Shrubsall watched movies with the man in a common room until about 4:30 a.m. By that time the man was asleep and Mattioli said he did not feel it was his place to wake him up. Prince said she found the man asleep in the common room the next morning. "Saturday morning I got up to exercise and found [the man who called himself] Curtis asleep in the [common] room," Prince said. She added that after she woke the man up he said he had to use the bathroom. While she was exercising, Prince claims, she noticed that the man had backtracked and was heading upstairs. Because of what she noticed, she returned to her room to find the man there. "I was about two steps into the room when he came at me," she said. "I was still holding on to the door and I stepped out and pulled the door shut." From there, Prince said she went to the bathroom and pushed the panic alarm. "At that point, he ran downstairs and I started running behind him," she said. "At a point where I thought the security could hear me, I started screaming for the guard to come out." After the man fled, University Police arrived and looked through the Residential Living guest sign-in book with Prince and Faculty Fellow Lisa Myers, Prince said. Prince added that the man had not been signed in. After talking with the police, Prince said she returned to her room and noticed that $200 in cash was missing from her dresser. She added that she is much more cautious because of the incident. "Even when I go to wash my hands, I'm locking my door and taking the key," she said. Myers said one of the reasons she thinks students are not worried about the man is because he has been around the house before. Prince said when she and police officers tried to establish how the man gained entry to the house, they came to the conclusion that "the guard let him in." She also said she is dissatisfied with the McGinn Security Services guard's performance during the incident because he did not attempt to apprehend the man. Residential Living Director Gigi Simeone said Residential Living's expectation of McGinn guards is that they alert University Police when trouble arises. "We do not expect them to become physically involved any way," she said.