Victim Of iPhone Theft Helps Police Catch Suspected Serial Thief
GREENWOOD VILLAGE, Colo. (CBS4) - A Denver woman helped police arrest a suspected electronics thief by using her iPhone app.
Cindy Menon told CBS4 her phone was stolen from the seventh floor of her Greenwood Village office building after she left it in the women's restroom.
"I had my iPhone in my hand. I was coming from a meeting. I set it down and accidentally left it there," she said. "An hour or two later I realized I was missing the phone and went back in it was gone."
By using the Find my iPhone app -- which utilizes a GPS tracking device -- she tracked her phone to a Denver home in the Cole neighborhood.
She called police, and when officers arrived at the location they found her phone, along with about a dozen others. They say the man who stole it was a janitor at her building.
"We talked to the resident. We were able to get consent to enter and look around. From that we actually saw -- in connection with our partners in Denver -- the phone sitting in plain view," Greenwood Village Police Chief John Jackson said.
According to the police documents, the suspect intially told police that his wife had found the phone in the parking lot before later confessing. The resident, Luis Mena-Muro, 25, eventually told police "I took the phone."
Police say Mena-Muro is likely in the country illegally and could be connected to other thefts. He now faces theft charges.
"I believe he was connected to other incidents of theft in our business park area," Jackson said.
Mena-Muro ran away from a CBS4 crew when they approached him outside of his home in an effort to interview him on Wednesday.
Menon now wears her iPhone -- which she got back within a matter of hours -- as a necklace around her neck. She still has concerns about what happened.
"Somebody has access to our computers, all of our personal purses, and phones and everything you have in an office. That person has keycode access to all the floors," Menon told CBS4.
