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Responding Officers Brian Kapp and Tom Seickendick found the back door at Chandel Jewelers on Ridge Road forced open shortly before 6:30 p.m. March 18, Detective Lt. Vincent Auteri said.
Kapp’s brother, Detective William Kapp, joined them inside, where he found a glass display case shattered and more than a dozen alloy and cubic zirconia rings missing.
Total combined value: 100 bucks.
The detective then watched a security video that showed the burglar at work, Auteri said. The bandit was seen fleeing when a security alarm went off, he said.
Kapp also discovered traces of saliva near the busted door, which the Bergen County Sheriff’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation collected it for DNA analysis, the lieutenant said.
Meanwhile, Brian Kapp told his brother that he’d seen a man who looked like the burglar walking along Ridge Road about an hour earlier.
The officer had also written a ticket for a vehicle in the same area.
The license plates had been altered, Kapp wrote in a report before the jewelry store break-in.
Police ran a computer check on the plates, which came back to Anthony Wiedemann, 48, of Kearny – who just so happens to resemble the burglar in the video, Auteri said.
Using surveillance video he collected from the surrounding area, Detective Kapp pieced together the night’s events: After parking his car, Wiedemann began walking around, “scouting the location before eventually forcing his way into the jewelry store,” Auteri said.
Wiedemann, it turned out, was later arrested by Dover police for a series of vehicle burglaries in their town. They sent him to the Hudson County Correctional Facility on an outstanding warrant out of Kearny.
Discovering this, Detective Kapp got a search warrant for Wiedemann’s impounded vehicle and found “significant evidence” linking him to the jewelry store break-in, Auteri said.
He charged Wiedemann with burglary, theft, possession of burglary tools, and criminal mischief, in addition to the parking ticket.
Wiedemann remained held in the Hudson lockup in Kearny pending a first appearance in Central Judicial Processing Court in Hackensack.
Auteri said his department thanked Lyndhurst police, the Bergen County Sheriff’s Office and police from Kearny, Dover and Harrison for their assistance.
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