Watsonville Man Arrested, Accused of Stealing Car From Dealer, Burglarizing Aptos Business

A 37-year-old man was arrested Thursday in the Jan. 6 burglary of a business in a seaside shopping mall in the unincorporated Santa Cruz County area of Aptos and the theft of car from a dealership, deputies said.

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At 1:44 p.m. Thursday, sheriff’s deputies arrested suspect Robert Richie, of Watsonville, at a residence in the 800 block of Park Way in Santa Cruz in the burglary of electronics and more than $10,000 in checks from the Holcomb Corp. in Aptos, sheriff’s Lt. Kelly Kent said.

Richie was also arrested in connection with the theft of a Chevrolet Camaro from a car dealer in Watsonville, Kent said.

The sheriff’s office identified Richie based on fingerprints collected at Holcomb’s office at the Seaside Village mall in Aptos and surveillance video from the car dealership in Watsonville, Kent said.

On Jan. 6 at 7:15 p.m., deputies were dispatched to Holcomb’s office in the mall at 19 Seascape Village where the front door had been kicked in and the checks and electronics stolen, Kent said.

Deputies also discovered evidence of forced entry at several others businesses in the mall, including two where the bathroom doors were kicked in, causing an estimated $1,500 damage, he said.

The deputies on scene found a set of car keys to a Camaro and were able to extract the suspect’s latent fingerprints from one of the businesses, he said.

The owner of a shop in the mall provided deputies with surveillance video from 1:45 a.m. on Jan. 5 showing a white male, 25 to 35 years old, wearing a dark blue or grayish hoodie and dark grey or black pants walking through complex, he said.

A short time after the burglary, the California Highway Patrol was alerted about a hit-and-run crash less than a mile from the Seaside Village and where officers found the stolen white Camaro, which had been damaged significantly in the collision, he said.

The driver of the Camaro had fled before the CHP arrived, but authorities discovered that the car was the one taken from the dealer in Watsonville and the keys recovered at the mall on Jan. 6 belonged to the car, he said.

--BAy City News

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