Massachusetts Snow Gave Police Clue They Needed

Snow has been the scourge of Massachusetts this winter, but for Lakeville Police Detective Sgt. Sean Joyce, it proved to be a bit of a blessing. He was on the scene of a home break-in when he spotted a very weather-dependent clue: the readable impression of a license plate in a snowbank. The Brockton Enterprise reports he ran the numbers and found the plate belonged to a Chevrolet Avalanche—which had been described by witnesses to other forced entries in the southeastern portion of the state. Police used the truck's info to track Robert Beaucaire, 37, and Amy Peters, 36, to the Moby Dick Hotel in North Dartmouth; they were arrested on Friday.

In their room: as ABC6 puts it, "tons of jewelry and other items" that had been reported stolen from homes in five towns. More than 300 items—worth upward of $10,000 and including crucifixes, jewelry, computers, and wallets—were recovered, and as of Monday all but about 15% of the items had been reunited with their owners. Beaucaire and Peters have been charged with breaking and entering into a building in the daytime, larceny over $250, and receiving stolen property. As Lakeville's police chief frames it, "It was kind of an odd way to solve a case. I guess we can thank the snow on this one." (A cable repair ticket from 1981 might help solve a murder.)