Palo Alto police reported this morning that a maintenance worker was arrested after he was photographed by a surveillance camera allegedly burglarizing an apartment.
According to authorities, a resident reported that she came home Wednesday to find her Curtner Avenue apartment had been burglarized while she was at work. The victim had installed a surveillance camera inside her apartment after it was burglarized about a year ago. That case, in which items of jewelry has been stolen, has not yet been solved.
Police say the camera was triggered by a motion sensor and automatically emailed the victim images of the suspect inside her apartment stealing a digital music player and the camera itself. But he didn’t manage to escape before the images were emailed to the victim. There were no signs of forced entry.
Police took the photographs of the suspect to the apartment’s property management company on Thursday and an employee there identified the suspect as one of their painters. He has been identified as 28-year-old Victor Adrian Martinez-Lopez of Hayward.
Police learned that Martinez-Lopez had no business being inside any unoccupied apartment and was not scheduled to do any work at the victim’s complex. He also did not have any keys to their apartments and police believe he may have entered the victim’s apartment through an unlocked window.
The property management company cooperated with the investigation, police say, and Martinez-Lopez was arrested Thursday and charged with one count of felony residential burglary and police say he is currently on probation in Alameda County stemming from a conviction for DUI.
According to authorities there is no indication that Martinez-Lopez is responsible for the prior burglary or any other residential burglaries in Palo Alto. Anyone with information on this case is asked to contact Palo Alto police at (650) 329-2413.
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