Extra security would not have helped the Shermans. imo, speculation.
Both very lengthy (And illuminating, imo) articles. rbbm.fwiw.....
The Break-In Artist: the hunt for the cat burglar who terrorized Toronto's wealthiest neighbourhoods
By
Malcolm Johnston | March 25, 2015
''The Fort Knox of Thornhill is a stucco mansion with a mansard roof, front-yard fountain and U-shaped driveway on the area’s most coveted street. It’s owned by a middle-aged couple named Tony and Sherry, who asked that we not publish their last name, and is
equipped with every security measure on the market: eight interior and exterior video cameras, reinforced locks, motion detectors in all rooms, a siren, contacts on every window hard-wired to a central response station, glass-break sensors, a 1.8-metre-high wrought iron fence with a buzzer system at the front and a brick retaining wall at the back. In home security–speak, the place is a “hard target,” meaning most thieves will take one look and move along.
So it came as a shock when, at 6:06 on the evening of Wednesday, November 6, 2013, Sherry received a call from her alarm company, Vigilarm, informing her that the second-storey master bedroom window had been opened.''
''The police boundary that encompasses parts of Lawrence Park, North York and the Bridle Path is Toronto’s most targeted. Since 2004, it has suffered a reported 9,374 break and enters, for an average of 852 per year or more than two per day. The next most targeted areas are the Annex, Little Italy, east Forest Hill, Mount Pleasant, Leaside, Rosedale and Trinity Bellwoods.''
''The figure was nearly always the same: a man in dark clothing, his face concealed, leaping from one house to the next, crawling up walls, ascending downspouts or hanging onto perilously steep roofs. Police developed a nickname for their daredevil mystery perp: Spiderman.''
''As a criminal, however,
he was sophisticated and methodical. During B&Es, he wore a dark, heavy denim jacket and pants, comfortable yet resistant to tearing or cuts, crucial to avoid leaving behind blood or other DNA evidence. He wore Kevlar gloves for the same reason. He owned a variety of cheap running shoes and often used rental cars, paid for in cash and probably rented under a fake name so that police couldn’t trace his plates.''
'
'Gagnon studied Lash’s shop for six months to plot his break-in. In the mornings, often before 9 a.m., he’d park his Mercedes convertible across the street and often stay well past closing. Sometimes he’d use a rental car so as not to raise the suspicion of patrons and store owners. He recorded the licence plates of the cars that drove into the store’s parking lot and monitored the patterns of Lash and his security personnel and staff. Gagnon periodically climbed up to the rooftop of the building across the street and, using a high-powered night-vision telescope, peered inside the jewellery store. He searched for a weak spot in the security apparatus, which was formidable: the front and back entrances
had twin key code activated doors, which Gagnon knew weren’t worth the effort''
''The year before, a client in the Yonge and York Mills area came home to find the skylight forced open—the thief had descended via a rope to the second storey—and a small collection of jewellery missing. D’Agosto arrived on the scene minutes after an alarm sounded, but the perp had vanished, the getaway rope still swinging.''
''At his farmhouse outside Bradford, they found what looked like a scene out of
Ocean’s Eleven:
articulating cameras, a climbing rope, a parabolic listening device, lock-picking manuals, an assortment of bump keys and lock-picking equipment, balaclavas, grinders, hatchets and crowbars, much of it stuffed into backpacks as ready-to-go B&E kits''
''Under the conditions of his $400,000 bail, covered in equal parts by Gagnon, his wife and two friends,
Gagnon now stays with sureties near highways 401 and 400, or with his wife in Bradford (
he completed the renovations to his property near Forest Hill and sold it for $872,500 last October).''
New Rogers "channel" is all chicken, all day
''A reformed ex-con reveals the tricks of his trade and teaches us to match wits with robbers before they strike
by Malcolm Johnston for Streets Of Toronto Posted: February 24, 2011
''Reading a home is something of an art form. Keith Matthews (not his real name) gestures at a large brick home on a snowy neighbourhood street with the blinds pulled partially back. “You can tell no one’s in there,” he says. “You see the living room on the right-hand side, the kitchen area on this side. They do have the laundry going, so they’re going to be back soon. You can see the exhaust on the side. That’s their laundry.” He points to the side door, which is obscured from view by a row of cedar trees, as his likely point of entry.''
''Some burglars will stake out a house for days, studying the owner’s patterns. Matthews preferred to find out quickly and definitively whether someone was home. “What you do is knock on the door and ask for ‘Fred.’ Make up any name. Bang, bang, bang. Make sure. If someone comes to the door, say, ‘Oh, I was looking for Fred.’ You give them some story. That way you find out if they’re home or not. Then go around to the side,” he says.
Matthews is walking south along Banbury Road in Bayview. He stands about five feet eight inches and is wearing dark wraparound sunglasses and a toque that covers his ears, so only his mouth and nose are exposed. He gets a long look from a resident walking her dog. “See, you’ve got people watching you — ‘What the hell are they doing?’ — right?” he says.''
''
Matthews says he could break into nearly any home in a matter of minutes. Once inside, the first order of business was to find an exit and make sure it was unlocked. Then he would go to the master bedroom and look under the mattress and for good reason: he once found $17,000 in luggage under the bed.''
''A lot of the time, you come in contact with the person who robbed you, or they’ve been watching your place.
Sometimes what people do is they go to those art galleries, and they will watch people, and they will see people buy [something] and then tail them home and stake them out,” he says. Sometimes Matthews would wear a hard hat and pretend he was in the neighbourhood reading meters. Meanwhile, he’d be surveying the street, looking for the perfect target. Other times, the disguise was legitimate. He used to run a construction company that did a slew of jobs in Forest Hill and Rosedale.''
''To get into that basement, Matthews simply removed the windowpane, which is how he would usually get around most windows rigged with alarm contacts. “Make sure the window is inside the frame itself and that it’s not one of those ones where you just put a [windowpane] in and a piece of trim on the outside,” he says. “It’s four finishing nails. Take that off and the whole window pops out.”
''Motion detectors need to be carefully positioned to be effective, and most aren’t.
“I can tell you about motion detectors. They are garbage, absolute garbage. I can beat every one that’s out there,” Matthews says. Most of them don’t scan the foot and a half closest to the floor, so he would crawl on his stomach and pass by undetected. If he saw the monitor go red, he would lie still until it turned back to green. So make sure your detectors are aimed at the floor and position one at the foot of the stairs, which will keep the burglar to just one floor, he says.''
Shane Zwezdaryk AKA ''Gagnon/Matthews''
'Spiderman' convicted in previous deadly heist | Toronto Sun
''Shane Gagnon is accused of being one of the most prolific burglars the GTA has ever known.''
Gagnon also has had some success as an inventor.
His profile on quirky.com boasts of over
400 inventions and 14 patents, including one for a “sex chair.”
20
Toronto Life
