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From
The Windsor Star in Canada:
WINDSOR, Ont. — A ringing cellphone led to the arrest of a man who allegedly preyed on blind people by sneaking into their homes while they were there -- and even stole one victim's eyeglasses and another's braille watch.
"I was dozing and I didn't even realize anybody was in here until I heard the squeak of the door," said Roy Lesperance (pictured), 75, who is blind.
"I thought, 'Oh my God, what is that?' I still didn't connect it with an invasion or anything like that. I thought it was one of my friends, but it didn't work that way. It scared the daylights out of me."
"Boy, it shows you the chutzpah that some people have and what they'll do."
Police responded around 8:30 p.m. Monday to Lions Manor, a home for seniors and the blind, in the 200 block of Strabane Avenue.
They had received reports of an unknown person entering two apartments and stealing things while the residents were there.
"It really tugs at the core values of our society when you're preying on some of the most vulnerable people in our society," said Sgt. Brett Corey with Windsor police.
"No. 1, they're elderly.
"No. 2, the majority of the people in that building are visually impaired. To stoop that low, as to prey on that sector of society, is truly despicable."
Police said video surveillance shows the man waiting outside the building, which has a secured front door, then slipping by a visually impaired person who was coming out.
He then entered an apartment through an unlocked door. Police said the resident was in the washroom when she heard the crook through the door rummaging around her apartment. The woman, also visually impaired, came out of the washroom and was able to make out the image of someone leaving her apartment. Some jewelry and her glasses were gone.
The victim later told police there was a string of pearls hooked to the glasses, and that might have been why he grabbed them.
Not long after, the man slinked into Lesperance's apartment. Lesperance told The Star Tuesday that city council was on TV and he was nodding off.
"I was sitting right in the apartment when he came in," said Lesperance. "I was dozing. All of a sudden I heard the door squeak and a slam. I thought 'what in hell?'
"It was a good thing my door squeaked or I probably wouldn't have even known he was in there."
Lesperance called out but no one answered. His wallet, cash, cellphone and braille watch were gone.
"It taught me one thing," said Lesperance, who didn't always lock his door when he was home.
"You figure you're living in an apartment building with people you know all around you, and you feel secure. The front door is locked. But boy, you just never know. My advice to all seniors everywhere, keep your door locked even though you're inside (an apartment building)."
Corey said criminals most often break into homes when no one is there, and it's a good thing in this case the victims didn't accidentally confront the man.
"This guy had absolutely no regard for the sanctity of their homes," said Corey. "Fortunately, he wasn't confronted. Here's a case where we're just extremely lucky a violent crime wasn't perpetrated."
Police were on heightened alert after a previous break-in at Lions Manor on Sept. 17 -- though they don't know if the same man is responsible -- and spread out to track down the culprit.
In addition to surveillance video, Corey said a maintenance worker saw the man from down a hallway. At the time the employee didn't think much of the man, who waved at him, but still remembered his "distinctive" pair of pants with wide white stripes.
Officers scouring the streets quickly found a man who matched the description walking on Wyandotte Street East near Strabane.
While those officers were speaking with the suspect, police back at the building with Lesperance called his cellphone.
The phone rang inside the suspect's jacket. The cops arrested him.
Officers searched him and found the items that had gone missing from the victim's apartments. Police also found two other wallets with cash and identification belonging to two women.
Those wallets had been stolen around 1 p.m. the same day from a locked vehicle in a parking lot in the 900 block of Ouellette Avenue.
David Jenereaux, 57, of Windsor, who is "extremely well known" to police, is charged with two counts of break and enter and four counts of possession of stolen property.
