GPS helped police track Jeep stolen in Old Saybrook to auto ‘chop shop’
— The investigation that led to the arrest of a local man on charges that include operating a chop shop produced evidence that the theft involved modern methods by which thieves can start a vehicle without having its key fob, according to a police affidavit.
But the investigation also produced evidence of much more primitive methods, such as smashing a window of the vehicle around 4:30 a.m., then towing it off a dealer’s lot.
That information is part of an affidavit by Old Saybrook Detective Sgt. Eric Williams in the stolen vehicle case against Devin J. Roberts, 27, of Middletown.
Old Saybrook police have charged Roberts with larceny of a motor vehicle and related crimes. Paperwork made public in state Superior Court in Middletown also makes clear that evidence developed in the Old Saybrook investigation led Middletown police to arrest Roberts on charges that include illegal operation of a chop shop.
Roberts is free on bail totaling $30,000 in the two cases, records show. Attempts to reach his lawyer, Jill K. Levin, have been unsuccessful.
The investigation that led to Roberts’ arrests started Feb. 6 when personnel at Shoreline Hyundai on Middlesex Turnpike in Old Saybrook reported to police that a 2021 Jeep Wrangler valued at $35,000 had been stolen off their lot. It was the third report that day of a vehicle theft from a car dealership in that area, and all three vehicles “were taken without car keys present,” Williams reported.
He wrote that he enlisted the help of the Sirius XM satellite radio service, which reported that GPS tracking of the Jeep was producing “pings” at an address that turned out to be the Roberts family’s rented home on South Main Street in Middletown.
Williams reported that he went there with another officer, and they caught sight of the white Jeep through the woods, parked behind the house. He said Roberts’ mother gave the officers permission to look for the Jeep’s vehicle identification number, which confirmed that it was the one stolen from the Old Saybrook dealership.
Inside the Jeep, the officers found “an unmarked gray fob that was clearly not a Jeep key fob,” Williams wrote. A panel under the steering wheel was missing, which the sergeant wrote, “is the access area to get the information to program the keys.”
With Roberts’ mother’s help, the officers got him on the phone, the sergeant reported. He wrote that Roberts said he had bought the Jeep via Facebook Marketplace from a man he knew only by a first name and had not paid for it because he had “never received any of the paperwork for the vehicle.”