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MAGNA — Mysteriously missing food for more than a year, Dustin Finlinson said he’d finally had enough and wanted to catch the culprit behind the disappearing frozen foods.
“We started noticing food missing here and there,” Finlinson said. So, in February he installed two home surveillance cameras inside and outside of his garage aimed at the family deep freezer. Last week he caught the hungry burglar on film and handed it over to police.
Over the last year, “Somewhere around $1,000 worth of food” has vanished from his garage freezer, Finlinson said. Most recently, the thief caught on camera can be seen stealing a large box of Costco brand Chicken Bakes. The Finlinson family has since dubbed the burglar the Chicken Bake Bandit.
Finlinson said he's not really concerned about the forfeited food.
It's about the act. If he needed food that bad, he could come knock on the door and my wife would feed him.
–Dustin Finlinson
“It’s about the act,” he said. “If he needed food that bad, he could come knock on the door and my wife would feed him.”
A faulty garage door is partially to blame.
“This door has been broken for a long time, it never is really locked, and we always are in and out of it,” he said. But instead of fixing the door, he wanted to catch who was responsible.
After installing one interior and one exterior camera in his garage, he caught the chicken caper. Now he’s hoping someone will recognize the man in the video and give his name to police. “Someone’s got to know who this is,” Finlinsin said.
If you recognize the person in the video, please call the Unified Police Department.
For a list of food banks in Utah, visit: http://www.foodpantries.org/st/utah.
