Rogers County Man Uses Hidden Camera To Catch Thief In The Act

You wouldn't think a box of Cheerios and a game camera would be crime fighting tools, but they came in handy for a Rogers County man.

Albert, who doesn't want his full name used or his identity shown, hired a crew to do grout work at his rural Rogers County home.

After the crew left, he noticed a lot of the pain pills prescribed after his wife's surgery were missing.

"Noticed instead of 42 pills there were five pills left in there," Albert said.

So Albert got curious... and creative.

The crew was set to come back in a couple days.

"Well, I was kind of mad," Albert said. "It kind of ticked me off that someone would go in my cabinets and my private space and take something, so I figured there's got to be a way I could catch this."

Albert's way was to put a motion-activated game camera in a Cheerios box on the counter across from where his wife's medication was kept.

Sure enough, he captured images on camera when the thief returned.

"Why would you go back into something after you've cleaned somebody out -- you'd think you'd leave well enough alone," Albert said.

Rogers County Sheriff Scott Walton says Albert's awareness and ingenuity was critical. He says without the images, even if deputies knew who took the pills, there would be no way of proving it in court.

"Pretty quick thinking and certainly a sharp man here who didn't want to be a victim of theft," Rogers County Sheriff Scott Walton said.

The sheriff's office identified the thief and is currently working on arrest warrants.

"It's like an invasion of your privacy," Albert said. "You've got stuff in your house and somebody comes in, why are they entitled to it?"

Albert is not only left with the same feeling of being violated that most victims experience, but also with a sense of satisfaction in helping to catch a thief.

"From this point on, I don't think this individual is going to be near as apt of going into someone else's house and doing the same thing," Walton said.