Police to question notorious silver thief
With an eye on unsolved Chestnut Hill burglaries, local investigators
plan to interview Blane Nordahl
by MICHAEL J. MISHAK
Philadelphia police investigators are patiently waiting their turn for some face time with Blane Nordahl, the notorious cat burglar with a taste for sterling silver who was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison last week for the burglaries of two New York estates.
Nordahl, 42, remains a suspect in several burglaries in Chestnut Hill, among other Northwest Philadelphia communities, police said on Monday. He was arrested earlier this year in a sting operation after authorities received information concerning his whereabouts.
Accompanied by U.S. marshals and investigators from Bergen County, N.J., Philadelphia police arrested Nordahl on Jan. 15. Armed with a New York warrant, the law enforcement team collared Nordahl, who had been living in Bellmawr, N.J., in the 3500 block of West Crown Avenue in Northeast Philadelphia. Resisting arrest, he fell and sustained an injury to his face.
Nordahl was released from an Ohio federal prison last December after serving time for a rash of break-ins, including some in Chestnut Hill, police said. He was charged as a fugitive from justice.
As part of his plea agreement, Nordahl is expected to disclose the details of his most recent jobs. At least two-dozen jurisdictions from Maine to Virginia have expressed interest in linking Nordahl with open burglary cases, police said. "He could have hit any place on the east coast," said Philadelphia Police Officer Linda Sell, of the department's Pawnshop Investigation Unit. Sell, who was the arresting officer on the scene in January, has followed Nordahl's trail for at least eight years.
"This is a guy who thinks out his jobs," Sell said in an interview on Monday. "Most people never even knew their houses were burglarized." Recalling one of several area cases, Sell said Nordahl spent hours removing a pane of glass with such precision that it escaped the owner's attention for months. Not an uncommon experience, Nordahl's victims typically report their burglaries months later when they notice their sterling silver sets are missing, a trend that complicates constructing a time frame.
He had an exclusive taste for silver, Sell said. "If there was a diamond ring missing from above the kitchen sink I knew it wasn't him," she said.
Sell said Philadelphia investigators hope to learn the identity of his "fence," the individual who would buy Nordahl's stolen loot to either sell overseas or melt down. Scores of authorities want that same information.
"There's a line waiting to talk to [Nordahl]," said Capt. John McGinnis, of the department's Major Crimes Unit. "It's not the point to keep charging him," Sell said, noting that Nordahl's coming clean about area crimes would not only help clear cases, but also possibly help recover some of the stolen items.
Despite not leaving fingerprints or clues, Nordahl's signature style helped to bring him down, police said. In a Boston-area robbery, McGinnis said, Nordahl set off an internal alarm during a burglary, but quickly realized his mistake and hid motionless in the woods for nearly eight hours to escape detection.
Well-known to Philadelphia police, Nordahl has fallen to city law enforcement at least three times since 1998. Nordahl's prospect of reform is scant, Sell said, saying that Nordahl used the Internet while serving prison time to case expensive houses. "He will continue to do it. This is his area of expertise," she said.
Police officials said they could not name the number of Chestnut Hill robberies in which Nordahl is a suspect, only saying he continued to return to Northwest Philadelphia after serving his prison sentences.
Law enforcement officials from Rhode Island, Maine, Connecticut and New Jersey, among other states, could seek to build cases against Nordahl for possible prosecution.
