nothin New Haven Independent | No Morning Dew on Car Leads to Arrest

No Morning Dew on Car Leads to Arrest

Branford P.D.

Before sunrise yesterday, an astute Branford police officer noticed that a parked car at a Shell Gas Station on Leetes Island Road in Stony Creek had no morning dew on its windows.

The car seemed oddly out-of-place compared to the other cars parked nearby. The time was 4:30 a.m.

So the officer, Chris Cope, inspected more closely, driving his police car nearer to the parked car. As he did, a man, later identified as Esteban Melendez, 18, of New Bedford, Mass., popped up in the driver’s seat, his hands raised in the air.

While Melendez lives in New Bedford, Mass, he had ties to New Haven as a juvenile and he had just come from West Haven. He was apparently familiar with the Stony Creek area.

As Officer Cope talked to Melendez he noticed that the column under the 1999 Honda Civic steering wheel was missing and that wires were hanging out. In addition, the Honda was running with no keys in the ignition.

Officer Cope, who was joined at the scene by Officer Bryan McGinnis, checked a police computer and learned the car was registered in West Haven. Soon after, the police contacted the car’s owner, informing him that his car had been recovered. He had not yet reported the car missing. The owner told police he believed his car must have been stolen from outside his home over the past several hours.

Melendez was taken into custody by Officers Cope and McGinnis. They had also found a small bag of marijuana in his pant pocket.

Melendez was charged with forcibly entering and removing the ignition of a car without the consent of the owner, a class D felony, larceny and possession of under a half-ounce of marijuana. He was also charged with misidentifying himself. Police later confirmed Melendez’s actual identity by using the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS).

Melendez was held on a $10,000 bond and was arraigned yesterday morning in New Haven Superior Court.

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