The Essex Place resident returned home just before 9 a.m. Wednesday to find a side door ajar and seeral rooms ransacked, Sgt. Brian Metzler said.
A neighbor's surveillance system caught images of the intruder, he said.
Just after 11:30 a.m. Thursday, the victim saw the suspect -- 22-year-old Abdulla Taylor -- walking by his house, Metzler said.
The resident "approached him while taking photographs...on his cellphone" and Taylor ran off, he said.
Soon after, officers spotted him on 12th Avenue at East 30th Street.
Taylor ran again, but Fair Lawn and Paterson police found him hiding behind a parked car.
Taylor remained held on $2,500 bail in the Bergen County Jail, charged with burglary and theft.
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