New Canaan Police used DNA to identify and arrest a 19-year-old Branford man in the theft of a Range Rover last fall.
Police found out about the theft on the morning of Oct. 2, when a Juniper Road man said that he had parked his wife’s SUV in the driveway at about 11 p.m. the prior night “and discovered it gone the next morning,” according to an affidavit from Sgt. Peter Condos that forms the major part of an arrest warrant application signed April 29 by state Superior Court Judge Bruce Hudock.
A credit card that had been left inside the SUV was used at 3:15 a.m. at an Exxon gas station in New Haven, according to the arrest warrant application, obtained by NewCanaanite.com. Using the vehicle’s tracking system, authorities located the Range Rover in New Haven.
Inside it, the owners found two drills and other tools that the thief or thieves appeared to use to “try and disable tracking systems,” the affidavit said. Police took DNA swabs from the drills and other items left in the vehicle, such as sunglasses and a screwdriver, it said.
The DNA matched evidence taken from two 2023 stolen vehicle cases out of Branford and East Haven, Condos said in the arrest warrant application. East Haven Police identified the Branford teen as a suspect in those cases, and he was charged with larceny of a motor vehicle.
With help from the state Department of Emergency Services & Public Protection’s Forensic Science Laboratory, Condos received confirmation that “both DNA profiles created from swaps taken from New Canaan and Branford stolen vehicles matched,” and so confirmed the teen “as being the contributor of both DNA profiles.”
On April 29, New Canaan Police traveled to state Superior Court in Stamford and charged the teen with larceny of a motor vehicle and conspiracy to commit larceny of a motor vehicle. He was held on $100,000 bond and now is scheduled for arraignment June 22, according to Connecticut Judicial Branch records.