A stolen GPS device was found Thursday on a 19-year-old Fairfield man, who was charged with burglarizing it from a car parked in the Center Street parking lot.
At a police briefing Monday, Detective Mark Cappelli gave this account of the incident:
A police officer saw Christopher Guthman of Geneva Terrace, Fairfield, walking along the yellow double lines of Noroton Avenue, from the Shell gas station toward the Noroton Heights railroad station just before midnight Thursday.
Partly because Guthman seemed to fit the description of a suspect in a robbery which occurred weeks earlier in Darien, the officer spoke with Guthman.
When the officer spoke with him, the Fairfield teenager said he was lost and needed a ride to Norwalk. He said he had arrived in Darien by train. The officer noticed a charger cord hanging from Guthman's jacket pocket, which looked bulky.
When the officer asked Guthman about the cord, the teenager looked like he was getting ready to run, so the officer had him lie on the ground.
The GPS device in Guthman's pocket was soon traced to a Darien resident who said she had been at the Darien Social restaurant that evening. A check of her car found her GPS device, normally in the pocket of a car door, was missing. The device was valued at $300.
The vehicle had no signs of forced entry.
Guthman was charged with third-degree burglary, sixth-degree larceny and possession of burglar's tools (a Leatherman multi-tool device and an LED headlamp in his pockets). He was held on $1,000 cash bond and given a court date of Feb. 21.
