Cars Entered on Various Nights on or Near Hoyt Street Over the Weekend

Nine vehicles parked by homes were entered overnight from Sunday to Monday morning, Sept. 18 to 19, at various streets on the western side of town, all of them off of Hoyt Street or not far from it, police said.

The cars were entered on Lake Drive, where some items were taken from them, as well as on Georgian Lane (off of Christie Hill Road and the only street not intersecting with Hoyt Street), Phillips Lane, Lake Drive, Hoyt Court and Echo Drive North.

Except for the cars on Lake Drive, nothing was reported stolen, but owners knew the cars had been entered when items from glove compartments or glove boxes were strewn about inside the vehicles, or doors were left open.

Cars parked at two other houses further north on Hoyt Street were entered earlier in the weekend, possibly the night before, police said.

In what may be a related incident, police said a burglar was caught after a 5 p.m. call the Wednesday before, when a man spotted him in his car parked in his garage on Inwood Road.

First Two Weekend Incidents

On the 400 block of Hoyt Street, near Woodway Road, a man parked his Toyota Model S sport utility vehicle at about midnight, Friday to Saturday. He thought that he locked it, he told police.

At about 11 a.m., Sunday, the man returned to the SUV and noticed items on the seat. The windows were up and there were no signs of forced entry, but the SUV wasn’t locked, and the man’s Armani Exchange brand prescription sunglasses were missing. They are valued at $75.

Not far away, at another home on Hoyt Street, two vehicles were entered. An alarm on a 2002 Ford Explorer was triggered at about midnight, Saturday to Sunday, and a man looked out a window to see a subject, possibly a male, running from his driveway, then north onto Hoyt Street.

The man also saw the interior light was on in his 2006 Ford Mustang. Nothing was found taken from either vehicle.

Nine Incidents Overnight Sunday to Monday

Among the nine vehicles entered, small amounts of money were taken from two vehicles parked near one residence on Lake Drive — a $5 bill was taken from one, 90 cents from the other.

No one heard or saw anything to alert them to the thieves except on Georgian Lane, where a vehicle alarm went off at about 1:30 a.m., Monday, and a resident called police.

Earlier, Wednesday Incident

In what may or may not be a related incident, an Inwood Road man found a burglar in his car, parked in his open garage, at about 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 14, police said. According to the police report, the burglar ran off, but was later found and captured on Woodway Road, which wasn’t too far away for someone going through the woods.

Police described the incident and arrest with this account (including accusations not proven in court):

The resident told police that at some point earlier in the day (the police report wasn’t clear when) he had left the garage door open. At about 5 p.m., when he went in the garage, he found a man he didn’t know sitting in the car.

The stranger quickly got out and ran off, but not before saying that he didn’t steal anything. Nevertheless, the victim found that there was only a dollar bill left in the center console, although he normally leaves $20 to $30 in it. Both the console and glove box had been rifled through.

Police were called and searched for the thief. They found him not far away as the crow flies (or, in this case, the suspect flees) on Hoyt Street near its intersection with Woodway Road, just to the north of where other vehicles were entered days later.

The man, Erick Gonzalez-Saavedra, 18, of Madison Avenue in Bridgeport, confessed to being in the car. He told a police officer arresting him, “I did it. Put me in jail.”

While he was being booked in Police Department Headquarters, Gonzalez-Saavedra told police that he had dropped the money he had taken from the car when he was running away. All he had with him was one dollar bill. He admitted that he had entered the vehicle with the intent to steal from it.

When he made further statements (that police did not describe at a news briefing), police decided to have him taken to Stamford Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation, but not before he was charged with second-degree burglary and released on a promise to appear at a later date in state Superior Court in Stamford.

Gonzalez-Saavedra did not say how he, a Bridgeport resident, had gotten to Inwood Road, a back street in Darien. Police had no indication that he was working with anyone else.

Police also don’t have any evidence that anyone working with Gonzalez-Saavedra was involved in entering the other vehicles the following weekend.