By Brian Lee Telegram & Gazette, Worcester, Mass.
LEICESTER, Mass. — A shoplifting suspect’s fingerprint left on a piece of Play-Doh in an apparent effort to muffle a security alarm at Walmart was linked to a man in jail for other crimes, police said.
Dennis Jackson, 55, will be charged with four counts of unlawful removal of an anti-theft device, according to court records from Western Worcester District Court in East Brookfield.
The incident was reported Dec. 11. The Police Department announced the fingerprint match Monday on Facebook.
According to the police report, there are warrants for Mr. Jackson’s arrest in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. He is being held without bail at the Worcester County Jail and House of Correction in West Boylston.
On its Facebook page, Leicester police thanked Connecticut authorities for help in identifying the fingerprint.
The Police Department’s original Facebook post on the matter last month read, “The attempt to thwart the security device did not work and the suspect fled the scene…..but the suspect left the Play-Doh behind. The LPD investigator recovered the Play-Doh and found the suspect had left more than just the Play-Doh behind; the suspect left a very good fingerprint pressed into the Play Doh for the LPD. The print is being processed to identify the suspect.”
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Case Update Play Doh Print – It’s a Match!! The Play Doh print featured several weeks ago on this page (see article…
Posted by Leicester Police Department on Monday, April 30, 2018
A manager at Walmart contacted police about the discovery of “spider wrap anti-theft devices” covered in Play-Doh, the police report said.
The manager said an employee found the devices discarded behind items at the store.
In January, police sent photos of the fingerprints to the Worcester Police Department’s Latent Print Unit. But there was no match in the state Automated Fingerprint Identification System, the report said.
On March 29, the police department posted the fingerprint on the Play-Doh on its Facebook page. As a result, multiple news agencies inquired about the case and published news reports, police said.
On April 2, Leicester police received a call from an employee at the Connecticut Forensics Laboratory who saw the story in the Miami Herald. The lab worker submitted the print to the national AFIS database and located a match to Mr. Jackson.
Police said Mr. Jackson is well known to police, with 129 entries on his Board of Probation record. He has used 18 aliases.
A similar incident was reported at the Walmart in Whitinsville, and Northbridge authorities were notified, the report said.
©2018 Telegram & Gazette, Worcester, Mass.
