ALLEGHENY COUNTY, Pa. — A man accused of breaking into homes in two Allegheny County communities has been arrested.
Police had been searching for Elwood Bartrug, 62, who was arraigned and booked into jail early Friday morning.
Bartrug was wanted for a series of home burglaries in Millvale and Reserve Township. As of Friday morning, he’s only charged in two Millvale break-ins.
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Police said he would ring home doorbells in Reserve Township and would break in if no one came to the door. However, if someone answered, he’d ask for directions.
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At one point during the search for Bartrug, Millvale police tracked him to a home, but he took off running and jumped out of a third-story window to get away.
According to a criminal complaint outlining two of the Millvale break-ins, Bartrug is charged with burglary, criminal trespass and theft by unlawful taking. Those two burglaries happened on Stanton Avenue on Sept. 13.
In one of them, an air conditioning unit was removed from a side window, but nothing was taken from the home, the complaint said. Surveillance video showed Bartrug inside the home, then running to and unlocking the front door to get out when an alarm went off.
In the other break-in, the homeowner returned home to find it had been ransacked. The glass window on the basement door was broken, and a video game console, controllers and video games were missing, the complaint said. The stolen items were later found at an electronics store on Grant Avenue in Millvale, where they had been traded in.
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