On 5/2/26 at 0705 hours, St. Paul Police took a telephone report of a burglary at 9xx Woodbridge St in St. Paul, Ramsey County that occurred at 0230 hours. The complainant, IA, reported that she had reviewed surveillance camera footage that showed a male suspect force entry into her residence by prying open the lock on the front door. The male was inside the residence for about thirty minutes and then exited carrying two purses and a laptop. He left the scene riding a small, distinctively colored, bike.
IA provided a detailed description of the suspect. IA also told police that she was sleeping upstairs at the time of the burglary, heard her inside door open, but thought it was her cat moving around. About 45 minutes after notifying police of the burglary, IA contacted police again because the suspect had returned to her residence and was trying to open her front door again. Police responded but the suspect was gone. Police reviewed IA’s CCTV footage of the incident, noted the suspect’s unique clothing, and realized that they had just seen the suspect outside a liquor store at [address omitted]. Police drove there and found the suspect, John Wesley CRAIG (DOB/1961-07-24), standing on the sidewalk.
At IA’s residence, police saw that the electronic lock on IA’s secured porch door was damaged and appeared to have been forced open. Once CRAIG was able to gain access to the secured porch, he was able to enter the occupied dwelling. After being Mirandized, CRAIG denied entering the residence and said he was just "looking for a smoke." But, after seeing pictures of himself in the residence, he said "damn, that is me" and laughed. CRAIG denied breaking the door lock and, at first, denied taking any property.
However, he then said he had taken some "trash" from the house and put it by someone's porch in an alley. Police checked the alley nearby and found the distinctively colored bike that CRAIG had been riding. Next to the bike, on the stoop of 2xx Front Ave, police found a large container filled with various items, including several laptops. IA identified some of the recovered items as hers, including her two laptops. Later, while processing the recovered property, police found a "sheath" with IA’s first name on it.
