ANATOMY OF AN INVESTIGATION: Sixth Street Drugs case closed. For now.

Nov. 5—TRAVERSE CITY — It is just before 1 a.m. on a Monday last summer, when the driver of a silver SUV begins circling the block near the neighborhood pharmacy, Sixth Street Drugs.

Twenty minutes later, a security camera records an unidentified person walking toward the pharmacy and, 6 minutes after that, two people run from the building, get into the SUV and disappear from view.

Thousands of pills — amphetamines, opioids, benzodiazepines — plus more than 100 doses of a liquid painkiller, went with them, according to a report filed with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.

Substance use disorder continues to pose significant public health issues for families in a number of US states, including Michigan, according to the state's Department of Health and Human Services.

In 2021, the latest year for which figures are available, 3,096 people died of drug poisoning or overdose, according to the state's public heath tracking database, which shows 2,539 of those deaths involved opioids.

Records show a string of robberies at downstate Michigan pharmacies last summer were also reported to the DEA; so far, officials have not found a direct connection to Traverse City.

"Recently, the DEA Detroit Division has begun to compile lists of the robberies, trying to ID any similarities/patterns, same type vehicle used, number of robbers, etc.," DEA spokesperson Brian K. McNeal said, although the agency has no way to track specific drugs stolen from a pharmacy.

If a manufacturer's bottle is found, McNeal said, the DEA can trace it back and see what lot it came from and possibly which distributor it went to, but each distributor could serve thousands of pharmacies.

A police report for the break-in at Sixth Street Drugs shows it was quick and likely pre-planned.

More than a year later, the case remains unsolved — despite a no-stone-unturned effort by local police.

"It was a lot of phone calls, a lot of work," says Traverse City Police Department Detective Tim Smith. "And we were so close, on so many different levels, but I still think they'll be caught — there's no way they won't be caught."

Smith credited Munson Healthcare, which owns the pharmacy, for providing their security video and for making significant improvements.

Munson immediately took steps to secure the store, said Megan Brown, a Munson spokesperson, and has fully cooperated with law enforcement in the investigation.

The break-in

On Aug. 15, 2022, thieves smash the front glass door of the pharmacy, setting off an alarm.

The alarm triggers a call to Munson Hospital as well as a 911 call to Central Dispatch.

Police arrive within minutes, find the front door ajar, a second glass door also shattered, and a carpet of broken glass spread over the entryway, trailing into the parking lot.

There's so much glass that when a Grand Traverse County Sheriff's deputy enters the building with a canine, the dog suffers cuts to its paws, leaving blood behind.

The tools police say they believe created all that glass — a yellow crowbar and 14 cutting disks for an angle grinder — are inexplicably left behind.

"Probably a mistake," Smith says with a small smile, "but a good one for us."

The day after the break-in, Smith settles in to watch video. Hours and hours of video.

This includes body cam footage from officers responding to the scene and security video from inside and outside the pharmacy.

The security video is not of high quality, Smith says, yet he can still see four or five men, all wearing black clothes, hoods, masks and gloves, smash the bottom portion of both entry doors, destroy locks on medication cabinets, then make off with dozens of containers of prescriptions.

A DEA report shows the loss is valued at $3,593.79, which Smith said appeared to be accurate, as far as the cost for legally prescribed medication goes. When sold illegally, however, the medication can go for as much as $10 a pill, or 10 times the retail price.

The tools

Since 2019, Smith has worked as TCPD's property crimes investigator, so he knows how to search retailers' stock online. Two days after the break-in, Smith finds a chain store that sells a 17-inch yellow crowbar and the Avanti angle grinder disks — Home Depot.

By now, Smith has talked with Grand Traverse Sheriff's Office Detective Matt Holliday, who has a contact, Randy Vasser, working loss prevention at the home improvement chain.

"This is an example of the importance of partnering with our contacts in loss prevention," Holliday said. "Because that can take you from, 'Who did this?' to, 'Now we have a lead.'"

Holliday asks Vasser if the tools were purchased at the Traverse City store and, if so, who bought them.

Vassar checks Home Depot's internal security video, according to a police report provided to the Record-Eagle in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

No local purchases with both these items on the same receipt but, on Aug. 13, two days before the break-in, someone driving a silver SUV went on a shopping spree at the Madison Heights Home Depot.

And spent $220.63 on a list of items that read like an ACME burglary kit:

One pair of firm grip all-purpose gloves, size large; one pair of firm grip all-purpose gloves, size extra-large; a Husky brand automatic center punch (a tool used to make indentations in metal so a drill works better); a Makita brand 7.5-amp grinder (designed to cut brick, masonry, metal, etc.); a 150 lumen LD flashlight; an Eastwing brand 21-inch crowbar; a yellow Stanley brand 17-inch crowbar; and a 15-pack of Avanti Pro 4 1/2 cut off disks (for use with a grinder).

The shopper — who Smith describes as a 20-something Black man, tall and thin, wearing a white T-shirt, black pants and white shoes — paid cash.

So, no credit card slip with a name — and the security video from inside the store is too blurry for an ID.

But there's also security video of the store's parking lot. And, while it doesn't capture a readable license plate number, it does show the make and model of the silver SUV.

It's a 2022 Kia Sportage.

The investigation

Smith contacts the Madison Heights Police Department and the Michigan State Police about the Kia.

A Madison Heights detective says their department hasn't had any recent pharmacy break-ins, but a yellow crowbar was used on some past breaking and entering cases, which he'll look into. And, the area around the Home Depot has several license plate readers, perhaps those cameras picked up the Kia.

TCPD's report shows a Michigan State Police tactical intelligence officer, Colton Drew, then compiles a list of about 1,500 vehicles that fit the SUV's make and model.

MSP spokesperson Shanon Banner declined to comment on Drew's work, stating they don't give out tactical information.

But TCPD's report shows Smith studies the MSP data — called a "vehicle dump" — and comes up with three possibilities:

The first is registered to a man in Chesterfield, the second to a Tulsa, Okla. rental company, and the third is registered to a Harrison Township woman.

The rental was in an accident in Grand Rapids more than a week before the break-in, then towed to a junk yard where it sat, inoperable.

Neither of the other two vehicles matched the suspect vehicle, Smith said.

Then later, another blow. Smith learns there was road construction in and around Madison Heights last August, making the license plate readers a dead end. They were temporarily out of commission.

By now it's late September 2022, and more than a month has passed since the break-in.

"At that point, we were still hoping to ID the vehicle," Smith said.

The fingerprint

Back on Aug. 17, 2022, Smith had put a request in at the law enforcement center on Woodmere Avenue to have the yellow crowbar and the grinding blades fingerprinted.

Local police have their own lab, a number of officers are trained in the fingerprinting process, including Jennilyn Oster, who was on call and accepted the assignment.

Oster said she didn't find anything on the blades, but had better luck on the crowbar.

"It had a nice coating on it," Oster said, "and we were able to lift a partial print."

Smith sent the print to MSP's forensic lab in Marquette, where staff there ran it through national databases. No match.

In February, Smith heard back from a private tech expert he'd asked to review the pharmacy's security video, but she hadn't found anything TCPD and MSP had missed.

In July, Smith listed the case as closed — inactive — because of a lack of new leads.

That partial fingerprint is in two national databases —the Automated Fingerprint Identification System and the FBI's Next Generation — waiting for a match.

"We've had other cases, some years old, where that happens and it results in an arrest," Oster said.

Smith pointed out that while the men who broke in to Sixth Street Drugs were wearing gloves, the Home Depot shopper was not, and the detective said he believes that's where the print came from.

And that the shopper either participated in the break-in, or knows who did.

"Maybe that person will never commit a crime, never be fingerprinted again," Smith said. "But I don't think that's likely."