To Catch an Escaped Thief…on Camera

KHOU 11 News Houston, Texas

Houston police have literally chased down a serial burglar who is back behind bars after escaping from a prison mental hospital.

On the west side of Houston, businesses big and small have recently been visited by a thief.

It’s someone that’s been stealing everything from money to computers.

D.A. Smith with Trammel Crow decided to hire Kimmons Investigative Services to put in a high-tech digital video security system. And it paid off.

“We got notified that someone broke into our property on Friday,” says Smith. “On Monday, we checked the cameras out. We saw the guy come in posed as a construction worker.”

Rob Kimmons is a former Houston police officer and president of Kimmons.

He showed how his cameras caught the suspect walking up after business hours with a hard hat.

The doors were locked, but when a woman leaves the building he is able to get inside.

Minutes later the suspect comes out with a computer.

Kimmons took his video to police.

“To be able to add the technology aspect of it that we didn’t have as cops, and to be able to give the police department the benefit of this is a lot of fun,” says Kimmons.

When HPD officers looked at the video, they initially told Kimmons they knew the suspect.

Later they found out he was serving a burglary sentence in the East Texas town of Rusk at one of the state’s mental hospitals, and so they figured it couldn’t be him.

But it was, police soon learned that 43-year-old Glen Archie Woods had somehow escaped.

The prisoner who had already been convicted of burglarizing more than 27 west Houston businesses, was back in the area.

He was spotted by HPD over the weekend and was caught in a stolen truck after a short high-speed chase.

Jeff McShan, KHOU 11 Houston News, May 26, 2005

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