A discarded burrito wrapper helped Fairfax police identify the alleged thief of a $30,000 custom long gun.
Michael Cole Kitley, a 46-year-old parolee, was arrested last week at his trailer in Coarsegold, a remote town in Madera County. He is being held at the Fresno County Jail.
The crime occurred at about 11 p.m. March 4 in the west end of Fairfax. Police said a burglar broke into two vehicles, stealing a set of golf clubs from one and the gun from the other.
Fairfax police Sgt. Rico Tabaranza found what appeared to be fresh litter tossed on the ground at the crime scene, including a plastic 7-Eleven wrapper for a spicy beef, beans and cheese burrito.
Tabaranza went to the nearby 7-Eleven store at 2402 Sir Francis Drake Blvd. to review recent surveillance footage. He collected images of a man buying the same type of burrito just prior to the burglaries.
The case holding the stolen firearm contained a GPS tracker. Some time after the burglaries, the GPS device sent a signal from an address in Coarsegold, said Fairfax police Chief Christopher Morin.
Police determined that Kitley, the parolee, lived there. The images from the 7-Eleven cameras in Fairfax appeared to match photos of Kitley on record.
Last week, while Fairfax police were preparing a search warrant for Kitley’s residence, they learned local agencies were preparing to arrest him for two other cases. One involves the theft of a gun from a vehicle in Madera County. The other is a reckless evasion case in which Kitley allegedly drove 50 mph in a 25 mph zone to escape officers in Fresno, said city police Lt. Mark Hudson.
A team of agents arrested Kitley on Friday and recovered the gun reported stolen in Fairfax, Morin said.
Kitley remained in custody Tuesday at the Fresno County Jail. His bail is set at $295,000, but he is also being detained on a no-bail parole hold.
Kitley, whose tattoos include the word “Skinhead” across his chest and handgun images on his right and left hips, has a lengthy criminal history that includes Marin.
In 2012, he was a fugitive in a Fresno identity-theft case when authorities learned he was staying at a hotel on Lincoln Avenue in San Rafael. When police moved in to make an arrest, Kitley ran through several yards and was detained after falling off a resident’s roof.
San Rafael police found two allegedly stolen guns in his car as well as allegedly stolen passports, identification cards and Social Security cards.
