Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Suspect arrested after searching for wallet at crime scene

Police say a 20-year-old man admitted to stealing items worth $760 from a massage and therapy business in Palm Harbor.

By RICHARD DANIELSON
Published April 7, 2005

PALM HARBOR - Talk about karma: A burglar who stole a statue of Buddha was caught because deputies say he returned to the scene of the crime to look for his lost wallet.

Dustin A. Lindenburg, 20, of Oldsmar was arrested Wednesday evening and charged with burglary of a business, grand theft and felony criminal mischief. Pinellas County sheriff's deputies say he stole items worth $760 from a massage and therapy business, the Tiphareth Healing Center in downtown Palm Harbor.

Business owner Dinah Metcalf said she immediately knew there was something wrong when she approached her salon at 1026 12th St. around 6:15 p.m. Wednesday.

The front door was ajar. Inside, a caustic yellow cloud from the fire extinguisher hung in the air. A 5-foot-tall set of wind chimes was missing from beside the front door. So was the 1-foot-tall statue of Buddha, the dream catcher and a decorative water fountain.

Across the street, Metcalf, 46, spotted a young man who appeared to be rearranging some things in the back of his red Ford pickup truck. Then he walked up and told her he had seen everything. A man, "a bum-looking guy," had broken into her salon, he told her, though he couldn't remember what the other man looked like in any detail.

As he spoke, he walked into the salon himself and seemed to look around, even though Metcalf said she told him not to go in because it was a crime scene. Then he came out and looked around the front of the business.

Metcalf said she asked him what he was looking for.

"I dropped my wallet," she said he told her.

The man left, but he also had told other businesses in the area that he had lost his wallet, officials said. He even left his name and telephone number in case they found it. That afternoon, he had gotten his hair cut around the corner at the Palm Harbor Barber Shop. He got a cut known as "the Caesar," short, with bangs combed straight forward, then cut straight across. He tipped $2 on a $6 haircut.

"When he paid, I was right there at the desk, and he had his wallet," said barber Rocco Petrucci, 61. "He came back within an hour and said he lost his wallet."

Deputies determined that the guy who lost his wallet was Lindenburg and that Lindenburg owned a red pickup truck. They called him back to the scene. Metcalf told deputies she recognized his truck, and sheriff's officials said he admitted to breaking into her business while it was closed Wednesday afternoon. Along with the chimes, statue, fountain and dream catcher, he also took a mini refrigerator, a cross and a folding digital clock, said sheriff's Sgt. Jim Bordner.

Although the items were recovered, Metcalf and business partner Marian Lee Klenk estimate that the crime may cost them up to $10,000 in lost business, repairs and professional cleanup of the fire extinguisher's residue, which is in the air conditioning ducts.

Metcalf said she accompanied deputies to Lindenburg's apartment Wednesday night to recover her things. The Buddha was already on display, and the fountain was set up on a table next to a sofa, plugged in and turned on, she said.

On Thursday, Lindenburg had the chance to consider the feng shui of a cell at the Pinellas County Jail, where he was being held in lieu of $15,000 bail.

His wallet had not turned up.

[Last modified April 7, 2005, 19:30:18]