The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Police say former cop was a ‘serial burglar’
Investigators believe suspect carried out over 40 burglaries last year
COVENTRY — While midnight shift officers were at a Coventry pizzeria last April surveying damage from a burglary, their suspect was up the block, kicking down a door inside an Italian restaurant and helping himself to $350, according to warrants for his arrest.
The suspect in the burglaries, Patrick Hemingway — a former police officer in Glastonbury and New Britain — drove past the police station, probably before the officers had been alerted to the first burglary, on his way to his next target on the same road, the warrants show.
Coventry police arrested Hemingway, 37, of Glastonbury, last Tuesday in connection with the backto-back burglaries as well as a third, earlier one in town last year. In all, Hemingway now is charged with a dozen burglaries in eight Connecticut municipalities and is in custody at the Osborn Correctional Institution in Somers in lieu of a total $1.5 million bail.
That bail is expected to rise, as more departments file charges.
Dubbing him a “serial burglar,” investigators say they believe Hemingway carried out more than 40 burglaries at businesses in three states last year, all while he was a police officer.
The Coventry burglaries happened at the Lakeview Restaurant & Banquets on March 29, 2023 and at Husky Pizza and Dimitri’s on April 23, police said.
According to the warrant for the Lakeview case, officers were dispatched to the Lake Street restaurant at 12:46 a.m. March 29 after being notified of a tripped alarm. They arrived one minute later, but didn’t see anything amiss and left.
Late that afternoon, a bartender opened up the cash register and discovered there was no money inside, the warrant said.
Surveillance video showed a Jeep Grand Cherokee had pulled into the front lot about 12:40 a.m. The burglar used a screwdriver or similar tool to “easily” open a kitchen door, the warrant said.
“He is in and out of the restaurant within about two minutes during which he finds the bar register, that has the key in the lock, and empties it of approximately $1,000,” according to the warrant.
After first burglary, suspect drives past police station to 2nd
Less than a month later, an officer and a sergeant were dispatched to Husky Pizza at 1011 Main St., where a burglary alarm was triggered at 1:18 a.m. April 23, 2023. They arrived at 1:21 a.m., according to the warrant for that case.
The officers checked the main entrance and found that it was unlocked, so they went inside. There they found a computer screen and keyboard on the floor by the counter and exposed computer wires dangling off the counter, the warrant said.
“It was obvious that the items had been knocked off the counter when the cash register drawer was stolen,” the detective wrote in the warrant. The cash drawer turned out to have only coins.
Police later learned that while they were at the Husky Pizza scene, a burglar was up Main Street, or Route 31, at Dimitri’s Restaurant, 3444 Main St., on the other side of the Coventry Police Department, that warrant said.
At 1:26 a.m., the person tried but was unable to get in through the back door, surveillance video showed. At 1:31 a.m., the burglar got in through an unlocked window that the staff used to leave open “a crack” to let in fresh air, according to the warrant.
The thief kicked open the locked office door and took a set of keys, which he used to get into the registers at 1:33 a.m., the warrant said.
He took $350 in cash before leaving at 1:40 a.m., the warrant said.
Surveillance video showed the burglar “has a slender to moderate build and appears to be agile” because of the way he was able to slip in the window, the warrant said.
The thief was wearing the same clothes as the one from Husky Pizza, the warrant said, and when police compared the April burglaries with the March one they saw similarities, as well.
Detectives also talked to police in other towns who were investigating similar break-ins and learned that those also involved a Jeep Grand Cherokee and that Hemingway, who had resigned from the Glastonbury Police Department on Sept. 1, was their suspect.
Detectives in Wethersfield and Shelton had collected cellphone tower data from the times of their burglaries that linked the crimes to a 2019 Jeep Grand Cherokee owned by Hemingway’s wife, who knew nothing about the burglaries, the warrants said.
Coventry police also learned that Patrick Hemingway’s DNA was found at burglary scenes in Old Saybrook and Middlefield.
However, Hemingway has not been charged with the Middlefield burglary.
Detectives obtained information about the movement of the Jeep around the time of the April burglaries. That information showed the Jeep stayed still, in the Rockville section of Vernon, until about 12:50 a.m. on April 23, according to the warrants for the April break-ins.
The Jeep moved to the Coventry area around 1 a.m. April 23 and showed “stagnant activity near Husky Pizza until about 1:11 a.m.,” the warrants said. It traveled north, toward Dimitri’s, where the Jeep was still until about 1:40 a.m.
It then showed “a pattern of movement away from Coventry and back to Glastonbury,” according to the warrants.