Two more break-ins last week on Connaught

The evening of Tuesday, April 28 marked a return to break-and-enter crime in Jasper. The spate of crime that hit Jasper in February and continued into March appears resurgent, with two business on Connaught Drive being the most recent victims.

Shirley Davis’ Everything But store and Kellie Young’s Niche Clothing & Trading Co. were the two businesses preyed on by the criminals. Davis wasn’t surprised by the break-in, having been on the receiving end of four or five previous break-and-enters on her store.

“I guess it was my turn,” said Davis, adding that “it was useless coming in here. There’s nothing anybody would really want here unless you were giving mom a gift.” Calling the crime “disgusting,” Davis also noted that nobody has ever been caught for breaking into her store.

When Davis arrived at her business on Wednesday morning, she noticed one of her stuffed bears outside on the street. The window on the side door had been knocked out and Davis surmised that the thieves must have climbed in through the window. Having taken only a single off-white jacket/hoodie with ‘Canada’ written across the chest, the thieves left through the back door, which they left open. Davis knows what the thief may be wearing and had a new door installed on Wednesday, which is solid, she said.

The story was similar down the street at Young’s store. The thieves “smashed the window with a big rock, reached in, opened up the door and then took all the cash out of the till,” said Young.

In nine years of business, this is the first time that Niche Clothing & Trading Co. has been broken into, Young said. Although visibly frustrated by the whole ordeal, Young did take pleasure in the fact that the thieves left their flashlight in the store, which was later fingerprinted by the RCMP.

Fingerprints were lifted from both break-ins, but Corporal Tony Dolhan of the local RCMP detachment said that “those matters are still under investigation at this point” and cannot say if the RCMP have any suspects.

When asked if these two recent break-ins were connected to the rash of break and enters in Feb., Dolhan cautioned that “we can’t determine that at this point... the investigations are still ongoing.”

Although unable to release specific details pertaining to the investigations, Cpl. Dolhan did say that in general terms, “when we do take fingerprints, we check them against employees first... and then they go off to our national database for comparison. We do get them back in a sufficient time. We’re not talking six months to a year,” he said.

Anyone with information regarding any of these occurrences is asked to call either the Jasper RCMP at 780-852-4421 or Crimestoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477)