A 90-year-old man was home when a registered sex offender wearing a tracking device allegedly broke into his Sylmar residence.
"It's a good thing I didn't confront him because all you have to do is blow on me and l'll fall down,” said Bill Blake, homeowner and alleged victim.
"It was 6:30 when I turned on Brian Williams and it was within 5 minutes of that this fellow entered the house.”
Blake’s 48-year-old care taker confronted the man in the kitchen as he ran from the house clutching a laptop and some of Blake’s clothes. She told officers she recognized the intruder as a man who helped her with an electrical problem a week prior, police said.
"I was so grateful. This is the difference when you're grateful to someone and then they stab you in the back, that's when you get the emotion,” Blake said.
Wilbert Matheney, 48, told detectives he never entered the home in the 13400 block of Bradley Avenue, but Matheney’s court-ordered GPS tracking device placed him there on Aug. 30.
LAPD detectives talked to neighbors who said the suspect matched the description of a man they believed lived in a home for registered sex offenders not far from Blake's home.
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Once they matched Matheney's description with a man living in the house on Norris Avenue, they checked Matheney's GPS ankle bracelet and subsequently arrested him.
"Lo and behold, the GPS tracker put Matheny in the victim’s home on the date and at the time of the burglary," Lt. Paul Vernon, commanding officer of the Mission Detective Division, said in a statement.
Matheney has been arrested on suspicion of residential burglary with no bail due to his post conviction conditions and status as a sex registrant, police said.
