Prowler in the M-Section or Late-Night "Visit" from SSU Student?

Early Thursday morning, as she left the house for work, my wife found something unexpected and disturbing on our front porch and lawn.

Laying on the porch were a set of keys attached to a long, threaded cable. On the lawn, abandoned in the grass, was someone's iPhone, still on, although password protected so I could not reply to the calls or text messages that came in.

We thought that the items could belong to our next-door neighbor, who had been working on the fence in the late afternoon. When he arrived home from work, we learned that the items were not his. (One of the keys was to a Volkswagen, which he does not have, so I had figured they likely did not belong to him).

We called the Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety to make them aware of the find. Also because there have been vehicle break-ins on our block in the past two years. Perhaps the keys and expensive phone belonged to someone that was planning a break-in, but who had been scared away suddenly by the barking dogs in my neighbors house?  That seemed likely, as the keys were actually right up on the small cement porch, outside the screen door.  The person would have had to be in our yard, at our door, possibly trying to get in -- not just walking by and dropping their belongings in the dark. They were not there at 8:30 p.m. when I watered the plants and locked up for the night. But they were there at 5:30 a.m. the next morning.

We waited for the police to arrive. It took a while because Rohnert Park's finest were busy with other calls.  By the time the officer arrived at about 8:30 p.m., I had thought to open up the case of the iPhone and found a business card tucked away, potentially belonging to the phone's owner. I did a quick Google search of the person's name and found that he is about 20 years old, a Sonoma State University student and a chap that fancies himself to be an actor -- as there were web pages from a site with his photo and a write-up of a flick that he had appeared as an extra in. The phone number on the card matched up with the phone number on the website.

I told the officer of my theory, and he related one of his own: "Sonoma State is back in session, so it was probably a drunken college student who came upon your lawn and left his things there."

In which case he would have had the wherewithall to pick up his beer cans, but not take his keys and phone? 

It didn't make much sense to me, but he was the officer, and perhaps he was not trying to cause a panic in the neighborhood over the thought of a potential prowler.

At any rate, the officer said he would contact SSU and try to connect the phone and keys with its rightful owner. 

And since no law had been broken (with the possible exception of trespassing on private property), I suppose  that is the most one could ask for.