St. Joe County police arrested three men, accused of several burglaries in the area.
Early Monday morning, officers responded to a theft in progress in Osceola. They discovered a car was broken into, and the garage door was opened through the car. Two mountain bikes were stolen.
Several officers and a K-9 unit searched the area, and chased two men who were near a mountain bike.
Another police officer found a suspicious vehicle near the scene, which someone got into and drove away.
The officer made a traffic stop and the driver was identified as 26-year-old Christopher Ryckeart of Elkhart. He was arrested on preliminary charges of burglary after 24 stolen items were found in his vehicle, including a DVD player, purses, Nintendo Wii, and the two stolen mountain bikes.
The items are all connected to six burglaries in the area.
Early yesterday, a second suspect, 21-year-old Frank Albano of Osceola, was arrested and charged with five preliminary counts of burglary and one count of theft.
Then later yesterday, a third suspect, 38-year-old Dennis Douglas of South Bend, was arrested in St. Joe County after officers responded to a burglary in progress. A witness allegedly saw Douglas climbing into a window of his neighbor’s home and removing items. Police recovered several items stolen from the house inside of Douglas’ van, which was also stolen.
Douglas is also charged with preliminary counts of burglary.