The Boise Police Departmentsays it is looking for a serial offender; and his “characteristic, predictable behavior” is quite disturbing. The suspect has walked right by cash or wallets, and instead has taken items of women’s clothing and a firearm.
Sgt. John Terry, a veteran of the Boise Police Department, and the sergeant-in-charge of the Criminal Investigation Division, visited with Morning Edition host George Prentice to talk about the growing number of disturbing incidents and how the public can help their investigation.
“The first one … we thought it was disturbing. And then second one, we thought it was disturbing. And then we realized there was a pattern and we started to believe it was the same person.”Sergeant John Terry
Read the full transcript below:
GEORGE PRENTICE: It is Morning Edition. Good morning, I'm George Prentice. We're going to spend a few minutes this morning talking about public safety, and specifically… about an open investigation that has our attention. And that is why we are going to welcome in Sergeant John Terry from the Boise Police Department. Sergeant. Good morning.
SGT. JOHN TERRY: Hey. Good morning George. How are you doing today?
PRENTICE: I'm well, si. May I ask about you? How long have you been with the department?
TERRY: Well, I've been in law enforcement for 38 years, George.
PRENTICE:. And in what division are you in?
TERRY: Well, currently I'm a Sergeant in charge of the Criminal Investigations Division, so I handle basically all the detective work.
PRENTICE: I'm going to guess on any given day, there are a number of burglaries that are being investigated or cases being closed. But this particular case… or these cases… are fairly unusual…because it also involves suspicious activity.
TERRY: Oh, it absolutely does. And you're correct. We do have a number of burglaries. And thefts are always occurring. That's just part of human nature of course. But we do have some that are more concerning to us currently. And I'd like to talk about those a little bit if, if you're ready.
PRENTICE: Are we talking about a particular neighborhood…or part of Boise.
TERRY: Some of them have been down around the campus of Boise State University, but also downtown. But we are concerned that a few of them have happened all over the city… so we can't really locate it in just one particular area. We’lll have to say that inside the city of Boise.
PRENTICE: At what point did you recognize, “ Hey, we might have the same suspect with multiple crimes at different locations?”
TERRY: Well, we do get a lot coming in all the time. But the first one was concerning. The second one was also concerning. They were all concerning. And after about the third one, we started to look at patterns and some of the other things inside the investigation and saw that the similarities were such that we believe it was the same suspect. And then we've had several more. So, we've had several of these concerning burglaries. And he didn't always break into a house, but he's been in the backyard or casing the place, as we say, and …6 or 7 of them maybe in the past two months. But we wanted to get out to the public because they are concerning to us for the reasons that this could escalate into something more.
PRENTICE: So, let's talk about what you did find in common. And just looking at some of the notes here….this is fairly disturbing.
TERRY: And it was to us as well. That's what prompted us on the first one… that we thought it was disturbing. And then second one, we thought it was disturbing. And then we realized there was a pattern of this, and we started to believe it was the same person. And that's what we believe at this point. We believe that there's a man out there who is looking into homes….and going into homes of young adult women.
PRENTICE: Is he taking things? Is he moving things?
TERRY: Well, he's breaking in. And in some cases, he, actually walked into places that were unlocked. So of course we're advising everybody to keep their doors locked. But he has gone into the houses and or apartments and actually gone past items that burglars, we would expect them to take wallets or cash, jewelry. And instead he's gone over and in one case he did steal a firearm. But in other cases, he's taken items of clothing from the young women.
PRENTICE: Was it a pistol? Was it a rifle? Do you know what kind of firearm?
TERRY: Handgun. It was a handgun.
PRENTICE: What kind of crimes are these? Obviously, it's breaking and entering. Are we talking about burglary? Are there felonies here?
TERRY: Well, absolutely. Felonies. Burglaries. Theft of a firearm is grand theft. If he's just walking around…in one case, he was interrupted by someone… who one of the young ladies that was home at the time. He looked in the window as she looked out the window because she heard a noise and scared him away. So, at that point you could have attempt… or even stalking.
PRENTICE: Is it your sense… because you have mentioned that many, if not all of the victims have been female? Is it your sense that this suspect knows where he's going?
TERRY: Well, he knows where he's going after he takes a look. We think that he's not just looking for an empty home. He sees a young lady who lives in a home, then would begin to case the home… and see…see his ability to break into the house from there.
PRENTICE: Yeah. We live in an age of surveillance. Are there any images available?
TERRY: Absolutely. And you can get on the Boise Police Department's website. And we also have some very good footage and descriptions on our Boise Police Facebook page.
PRENTICE: Well, paint me a word picture. We're on the radio. We're going to point our listeners, certainly to that website. But paint us a word picture because you and your colleagues… you describe suspects for a living. How would you describe this one?
TERRY: Well, I would describe him….,again from what we see in the video. So, if you look at the video, he's a male. We believe in his 30s, 40s, medium build, maybe five foot eight, five foot ten. Of course, it's difficult sometimes to tell from some of the videos. An adult male dark brown hair. We did notice in one of the pictures that he appears to have a wedding ring on. But what's concerning to us is his pattern of behavior. So, if you do see something and somebody in your yard, you don't know somebody in your front yard you don't know, call the Boise Police Department is what I'm advocating for. Call us. Call 911. A lot of people think they have to call 911 if something more serious. We've had a couple of these cases. We've actually had the people who are victimized, or really good witnesses call apartment managers, friends, family, and there's a time delay in actually getting around to sending the police department. I'd like to remind everybody that's what we pay for the Boise Police Department. That's what we do. We go out and investigate suspicious activities. We can also you can be anonymous when you do it. You can call in and to the dispatch and say, hey, I see somebody weird in my backyard in my neighbor's yard. Nothing more than that. We will go out on it doesn't cost anything. Again, we're all taxpayers. And that's what the Boise Police Department does for a living. So, if you see something suspicious, give us a call. We'd love to go out and investigate it. We'll call you when it's all over. Even if you want to remain confidential and tell you what we found.
PRENTICE: Sergeant, when someone is taking someone's personal belongings as opposed to their valuables….this is a very particular brand of criminal. Yes?
TERRY: He's a little more brazen than some that you might see so far. The ones, the incidents that we're talking about all been reported to us during the daytime. He has been walking around in the backyards at times with no face covering. In my opinion, he thinks he's getting away with this and is and can continue to get away with this. So someone who's not just targeting the house, he's not just targeting to steal valuables like I said, he's walked past some valuables in the past. He's usually I believe he knows who's in the house before he goes in the house again targeting young, young women. And some of the items that he's taken are concerning us because he's taken some of their clothing items.
PRENTICE: Undergarments?
TERRY: Yes, sir.
PRENTICE: Again, 911 is our go to contact.
TERRY: Yes. 911.You can always call the regular dispatch number. But if you see somebody in your backyard, call 911. And if you don't know the number and you feel it's enough to call, call, call 911. So, if you see somebody, don't hesitate. Let's see if we can all work together to catch this guy.
PRENTICE: And he is Sergeant John Terry with a veteran at the Boise Police Department. Thank you for what you do every day. And thanks for giving us some time this morning.
TERRY: Yeah. And thank you for helping to get the message out.
Find reporter George Prentice on X @georgepren
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