Markeshia Ricks Photo
The trail started with a cell phone taken from a woman at gunpoint.
“We came into contact with the person who bought her phone,” recalled Detective Jess Stone (pictured). “That person told us who they bought the cell phone from and we did an arrest warrant for him.”
Police officers picked up the seller of the phone, not realizing that he would lead them down a rabbit hole. They would follow the trail not only to the person who actually took the phone, to some 15 other people allegedly responsible for a string of spring and summer armed robberies all over town.
“In a post-arrest interview, he told us where he got the phone from,” Stone recalled. “We interviewed that kid, who was a juvenile, and he said how he came to have the phone.”
It turned out that the man from whom the kid had obtained the phone was the common factor in a number of armed robberies that detectives were investigating.
During a voluntary interview, the man, who was arrested on a separate matter, confessed to the April 9 robbery of the woman for her cell phone. Then he did something that most people would find odd. He confessed to other crimes and gave up his accomplices.
It wasn’t odd to Stone, ae military veteran, wife and mother of two small children who became a cop for one simple reason: “I just think it’s a job that makes a difference.”
She’s been a detective for two and half of her eight and a half years on the force. During that time she has discovered that there some criminals like to brag about what they’ve done.
“A lot of the interviews were voluntary initially, and I think it’s all in the way that you talk to the person,” she said. “I think a lot of people like to hear themselves talk, and with these cases particularly, they just went on and on about a bunch of different things that we didn’t expect them to admit to. And they just did.”
In fact, the criminals went on to the point that they were confessing to crimes for which the cops weren’t even considering them suspects. Stone and her fellow detectives were all ears.
Stone is always willing to lend a listening ear. But for her it’s not an act,. She said she is often truly interested in hearing about why some people engage in the criminal activities that they do.
“It’s really fascinating to see where their moral line is,” she said. “Like, some people would never break into a car or a house, but would pull out a gun in the middle of the street. And I’m really interested in why that is.”
With a captive audience, the man went on to confess to an armed robbery that happened May 29 on Alden Avenue near Saint Aedan Catholic Church. He provided the names of two more men who helped with that robbery.
Officers arrested the two men. Stone conducted a voluntary interview with one of them about the Alden Avenue robbery. It turned out he too was feeling chatty enough to not only admit to the Westville robbery, but to volunteer that he had helped rob a pizza delivery guy on Forest Road. Another detective was investigating that robbery.
As if he weren’t in enough trouble, he further confessed to a third robbery committed on June 13 with one of the men implicated by the first suspect on Grand Avenue.
“We interview the third guy who is arrested for a totally separate incident, and while we’re speaking to him in a post-arrest interview, he gives up up the armed robbery at the commercial store on Ferry Street that happened June 29,” Stone recalled.
Stone said it turned out that the rash of robberies were conducted by the first man who had initially confessed to robbing the woman of her cell phone back in April. He allegedly committed the armed robberies each time with a different one of the other two men, making off with mostly cell phones and occasionally small amounts of cash. And occasionally the two men were conducting robberies together without the first guy. The first guy’s sister and a friend of his sister were also acting as getaway drivers. They’ve all since been arrested.
Stone threw herself into the investigation, which required lots of follow-up work, observed her supervisor, Sgt. Manmeet Colon. “She was here every day early for a month finishing up the warrants. She was very dedicated to the case.”
Stone credited patrol officers for nabbing the guys when warrants went out for their arrests.
“I think it is safe to say,” she said, “that robberies in those areas have gone down for the time being,” she said.
Read other installments in the Independent’s “Cop of the Week” series:
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• Joseph Aurora
• James Baker
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• Manmeet Bhagtana (Colon)
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• Paul Bicki (2)
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• Keron Bryce and Osvaldo Garcia (2)
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* Elisa Tuozzoli
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