Taylor police are on the lookout for suspects in a home invasion on Tuesday described as having a “dark complexion possibly middle eastern with a thick accent.”
Detective Lt. Frank Canning told WXYZ the incident, which occurred around 4 p.m., involved an “elderly gentleman that was home alone … in his basement watching television when he heard a noise, a voice, he looked up the stairs and there was a gentleman standing at the backdoor that led to the basement.”
Go Ad-Free, Get Content, Go Premium Today - $1 Trial
The man, who was inside the home, told the homeowner he was a salesman for FlexSeal, offering “services” to seal cracks in concrete, the News-Herald reports.
When the homeowner “chased the guy outside, there were two others outside,” Canning said.
The homeowner attempted to snap pictures of the suspects and “they knocked him down, and took his camera jumped in the car, and backed up the street,” Ronald Hosmer, a neighbor who lives across the street, told WXYZ.
Go Ad-Free, Get Content, Go Premium Today - $1 Trial
Hosmer said the same suspect approached him before the home invasion with the same offer.
“I told them how much would the job cost and I couldn’t get an answer out of him,” Hosmer said. “He didn’t get anywhere with me so he tried my neighbor.”
“This doesn’t happen around here like that,” said Hosmer’s wife Pam told the news site. “This is pretty quiet.”
A since-deleted Taylor Police Department Facebook post describes the suspect as “a younger male approx. 20-30yo, 5’11, dark complexion possibly middle eastern with a thick accent, thin build, wearing a dark blue Detroit Tigers baseball hat, a tattoo on the side of his neck.”
“The suspect did not appear to be wearing any business logos or insignia. The suspect assaulted the victim, stole items belonging to the victim and fled the scene with two other males fitting the same description,” the post read. “The fleeing vehicle was described as a blue SUV similar to a Chevy Equinox.”
Hosmer was among several neighbors approached by the trio, and police are now soliciting information and video footage of the suspects.
The incident is the latest in a growing number of downstate thefts involving imposters, including some in the country illegally.
Yohangel Martin Polanco Melo, 23, is currently facing two felony and two misdemeanor larceny charges after he was arrested by Troy Police this month for allegedly posing as an Amazon driver to swipe iPhones from residential addresses in metro Detroit, where home surveillance systems captured the thefts.
Melo, an illegal immigrant from the Dominican Republic, “dressed in an Amazon vest, bucket-style hat, and surgical mask, would approach a home that had just had an iPhone delivered carrying a small empty package,” according to a Troy Police Facebook post. “Polanco Melo would leave the empty/unlabeled box and steal the iPhone box, often concealing it under his vest while returning to his vehicle.”
Investigators reviewed the surveillance footage to identify a silver Dodge Caravan with a paper plate in the rear window used in the thefts and stopped that vehicle on Oct. 15.
“The driver, Polanco Melo was arrested wearing the same Amazon vest, bucket style hat and surgical mask observed in the numerous surveillance videos/images,” Troy Police wrote. “Officers recovered several iPhones that were inside the vehicle along with several empty boxes.”
Melo’s arrest came just days after two men impersonating DTE workers allegedly murdered a homeowner in Rochester Hills, bound his wife, and robbed the place.
“We’re DTE,” one said in a surveillance video. “We’re checking for gas leaks.”
The men were wearing reflective DTE vests, carrying a clipboard, and driving a white pickup with a DTE identifier.
The Rochester Hills couple initially turned the men away when they first approached the home around 10 p.m., but the duo returned the next morning and the homeowner, Hussein Murray, owner of Gold & Glitter Jewelry in Hamtramck, escorted them to the basement.
Murry’s wife told investigators her 72-year-old husband did not return with the men, who then bound the wife with duct tape and demanded money and jewelry, WDIV reports.
The two searched the home for about 20 minutes, took the woman’s phone and watch, and fled. The wife eventually called 911 and told police she believed her husband had been kidnapped. Police found Murray’s body in the basement with injuries so severe they could not immediately determine a cause of death.
Carlos Jose Hernandez, 37, was arrested for the crime as he headed southbound from Arkansas on I-49 in Louisiana, and he now faces charges of felony murder and two counts of unlawful imprisonment in Michigan, as well as charges in connection to multiple warrants in Ohio for armed robbery, according to a news release.
The second suspect, 39-year-old Joshua Zuazo, was arrested in Plymouth Township days later, WXYZ reports.