3 Home Break-Ins in March in Manalapan

Manalapan, NJ - Manalapan Township has had three home break-ins in the past month, with the latest just reported Wednesday on Jared Lane.

Police did not answer when asked if they may be related.

The first break-in was March 3 on Oakland Mills Road. A woman said she returned home at 4:45 p.m. that day to find an unknown amount of jewelry missing from multiple bedrooms.

Six days later, on March 9, a resident of Hearthstone Drive said someone broke into his home sometime between 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. that day. He said a glass pane on his back door was smashed, and an undisclosed amount of jewelry and cash was taken from the master bedroom.

On Thursday, a homeowner on Jared Lane wrote to Patch to report that his home had been burglarized the day before, on Wednesday March 16, sometime between 9 a.m. and 1:45 p.m.

"It appears that whomever did this went straight for the master bedroom and stole jewelry and some cash," he wrote.

"I don’t think that it is coincidence that all three are practically a week apart, during the day and involve jewelry and cash taken from a master bedroom," the resident, who asked to stay anonymous, said.

Police did not answer when asked if the three break-ins may be connected.

Can police alert residents to a string of burglaries?

Manalapan police do have the technology to send a mass voicemail to township homeowners. However, the department uses it mainly for emergency purposes, said Deputy Police Chief Michael Fountain.

"We do have that technology and have used in numerous times, but we use if for emergency notifications almost exclusively," he told Patch. "Examples in the past have been preparation for extreme weather events; if we were searching for a criminal on the run in a specific area of town or reports of a rabid animal in a particular area."

Manalapan police do report all crimes weekly to the media, and post them on the police website weekly. In addition, police update their website when things increase out of the ordinary, he pointed out.

"Utilizing the system for every residential burglary or burglary to a motor vehicle could become so frequent our residents might not actually take notice when we do send out something under an emergency situation," Fountain said.

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