Digital sleuthing solves Scituate vandalism case
1:44 PM Fri, Oct 30, 2009 | Permalink
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SCITUATE, R.I. -- Sherlock Holmes would perhaps have dubbed it "The Case of the Oviform Projectiles" and wound up baffled, but then again the great fictional detective didn't operate in the age of the Internet. Keith Yeaw does, however. He's a police officer, and he has cracked an egg case. On Oct 11, Joyce Langlais emerged from her house on Riley Lane in the Hope section of town to discover that her car, parked in the driveway, was covered with broken eggs. Ditto the house. Yeaw checked the neighborhood. He found three empty egg cartons on the street nearby. Then he found another house and parked car, similarly bombarded. The residents there were unaware of the vandalism until Yeaw knocked on their door. Poking around, Yeaw noticed an egg carton floating in a backyard swimming pool. It proved identical to the three he had already collected. Yeaw went back to the police station and Googled Hudson Valley, a company that supplies eggs to Wal-Mart stores in Rhode Island. He learned that the nearest Wal-Mart, on Plainfield Pike in nearby Cranston, doesn't sell eggs. But the one on Route 3 in Coventry does. Yeaw conferred with a store security officer, who checked out the UPC number, which helps stores keep track of their sales and inventories. "Lo and behold, at 10:25 on Saturday evening Oct. 10, two young white males purchased four cartons of eggs and they even knew what register they went through," Lang recounted. "A surveillance camera inside the store showed the face of one of the purchasers exiting the store," Lang said, and an outside camera showed the pair getting into a car and driving off. "So [Yeaw] picks up the pictures from Wal-Mart and passes them around to people in the police station. No one here can ID the boy. He proceeds to Scituate High School and checks the school resource officer, Sgt. Kevin Pendergast. Pendergast ID's the boy as a student. In the parking lot of the school Pendergast shows the car he drives -- same make, model, color as the surveillance photo." Since the suspect was a juvenile, Lang said, Yeaw set up a meeting with his parents. "He confesses, and he gives up two other juveniles, like a domino effect," Lang said. Mariorenzi is scheduled for arraignment Nov. 4 in Kent County District Court. "I didn't even know Keith was doing this," Lang said. "He came into the office and showed me. It was an awesome investigative job -- an incredible piece of investigative work. Who would have thought of that? This is the first time I've seen this done in this P.D." 
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Nice Job, you went way beyond what any local PD would have done...so goes the old saying, if you want something done right, do it yourself. The kids punishment should cover the costs to fix any damages brought on by the eggs, or at least hours upon hours of community service...
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Kudos for this officer on going the extra mile (to say the least) to help the complainant in what many others would dismiss as an unsolvable case. Watch what you do in the digital age, you never know what might trip you up! Great work!
How about sentencing these youths to cleaning up her yard of this mess and raking her leaves.
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Even though some would think this not worthy of a police investigation, if your house was egged you would have thanked Officer Yeaw. This was excellent investigative work and it's main value would have been training in the use of 21st century investigative techniques and tools. It was probably an eye opener for the perps and their friends.
Kudos to Officer Yeaw. This would have made an excellent episode for Dragnet.
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EGGSellent job, Officer Yeaw! Also, props to WalMart for having the technology to pretty easily narrow the purchase down. Hope those boys learned a lesson.
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Officer Yeaw nice job! Exemplary work, with Halloween upon us you undoubtedly stopped at least these boys from egging more houses. Scituate residents call in! The boys should be made to clean up all the Halloween pranks in town!
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Egging a house is no yolk. I hope the officer doesnt get poached by another department. The Scituate PD would be scrambling to find his replacement.
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I'm happy and proud that I live in Scituate. Thank you for your diligence Officer Yeaw. Goes to show what One officer's desire to do good old fashioned police work, together with the help of technology, can do to catch some pranksters. I hope everyone intent on doing harm to people realize that not everyone is asleep on the job.
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I find it somewhat interesting that the Journal chose to identify the perpetrators as "two young white males..."
Had they been black, would the Journal have identified them as "two young black males..."? I think not.
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Good work. Remember HS students you need to step up your game to egg house. Leave no evidence!
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great job officer keith....feels safe as ever...
billy& melinda
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To Bill, who posted at 4:11 PM: Projo should ban you for bad puns! (just kidding)
No fines for these kids. Make them do community service like scrubbing graffiti off buildings and street signs for at least the next 4 Saturdays. And make sure they sweat while they're doing it.
Having said that, there but for the grace of...
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My house and car were hit three times over the past three months. A huge THANK YOU to the Scituate PD. Once is a prank; three times is vandalism.
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