A Whiting man was charged with burglarizing a township pharmacy on three separate occasions after Manchester Township Police investigated a weekend incident at the store.
The owner of The Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy on Lacey Road in Whiting alerted Manchester Township Police that he was remotely viewing the store’s surveillance video feed, which showed a man inside the business at 3:38 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 18. Police responded to the scene and found a glass door had been shattered, but the suspect was gone.
An on-scene investigation led by Detective Craig Beaulieu, which included a review of the store’s surveillance video footage, resulted in images and descriptions of the suspect and vehicle used in the burglary. During his normal patrol, Patrolman Matthew Walaszek located a vehicle matching the suspect vehicle description on Columbine Avenue in Whiting.
It was determined that the owner of the vehicle, 60-year-old Peter J. Lucia of Columbine Avenue, had since been admitted to an area hospital on an unrelated matter. Detective Beaulieu and Detective Adam Guker then questioned Mr. Lucia about the three burglaries to the Medicine Shoppe on three separate occasions since 2013, including the most recent incident on Oct. 18. Lucia was subsequently charged with all three counts of burglary and three counts of criminal mischief. His bail was set at $15,000