CELL PHONE LOCATOR LEADS TO PAIR OF HOME BURGLARS

DELTONA, Fla. -- A victim of a home burglary in Deltona wanted her stolen cell phone back and through simple tracking technology got her wish, along with the arrest of two thieves. Once the pair was in custody, it was discovered that they had a couple of stolen handguns from another burglary, too.  The men were charged by Volusia County Sheriff’s deputies with multiple burglary-related crimes late Saturday night and booked into the Volusia County Branch Jail in Daytona Beach without incident.

A 66-year-old woman had gone to the store Saturday afternoon and when she returned to her Saxon Boulevard home she discovered that someone had smashed a back window and gotten inside. When deputies responded, jewelry, a laptop computer and a cell phone were discovered missing.  The victim used a cell phone locator service to get the general area the phone was in.  After calling the phone several times, it was finally found ringing in a garbage can in front of a Baton Drive house at about 11:47 p.m. Deputies then looked around for any other evidence.

Voices coming from the yard on one side of the house led a deputy to two men hiding behind a tree: 20-year-old Gabriel Hidalgo and 21-year-old Heriberto Hidalgo.  Both men initially made up stories about what they were doing in the area, but once stolen jewelry and a handgun were found on them they admitted to the home burglaries.  The jewelry they had came from the Saxon Boulevard break-in and two handguns were traced back to a Friday burglary on Tivoli Drive.

Both Deltona men were charged with carrying a concealed weapon, loitering/prowling, burglary, armed burglary, three counts of grand theft and criminal mischief. Heriberto Hidalgo was also charged with giving false identification to law enforcement and possession of narcotics paraphernalia. He also had a Seminole County arrest warrant for failure to appear.