Dorothy Binswanger has learned much about criminal behavior in the past few weeks, but more than anything she has realized the importance of giving police a solid lead.

“I think sometimes we think the police are not doing the job,” she said in an interview last week. “Sometimes there’s not a whole lot to follow up on.”Fortunately, that wasn’t the case when police investigated the April 26 burglary of Binswanger’s home on the 400 block of W. Mermaid Lane.

Erik Gumminger, George Joseph Keeley and a third suspect allegedly stole $10,000 in property and family heirlooms from Binswanger’s home while she and her husband, David, were gone for the weekend. (Teenage children were sleeping inside when the house was burglarized.)

In the following days, the suspects allegedly charged a “couple thousand dollars” on Binswanger’s Target Visa credit card.

Philadelphia Police were able to arrest Gumminger and Keeley on May 13 and May 19, respectively, with help from the Target Visa fraud protection department and authorities from Montgomery County and Willistown, Pa.

Gumminger, 36, was charged with receiving stolen property and theft-related criminal conspiracy before police released him on recognizance, according to a criminal complaint. A preliminary hearing has been set for July 14.

Keeley, 26, was of greater interest to police since he had been previously convicted on first-degree felony burglary charges in November 2002, according to First Judicial District of Pennsylvania records. At that time, he was sentenced to a maximum of five years in prison and up to five years probation.

At his May 20 arraignment, Keeley was charged with burglary, criminal trespassing, and theft by unlawful taking, receiving stolen property and criminal mischief, according to a criminal complaint. He is still being held on $2,500/10 percent cash bail.

Binswanger believes the third suspect, a woman, was released because she had no previous criminal record and because she was “instrumental” in helping the police find Gumminger and Keeley.

The investigation of both men could have stalled if Binswanger hadn’t recalled identification numbers for her credit card and her daughter’s laptop computer.“

I got lucky because the gentlemen who visited our home made some mistakes,” she said. “They used a credit card to charge [purchases] on the laptop.”

A data trail led police to the King of Prussia Mall, where the suspects allegedly went on a “spending spree,” according to Binswanger.

Detective Tim Hartman, of the Philadelphia Police Department, was able to obtain surveillance video footage of the suspects from King of Prussia Mall stores, Binswanger said, including DSW Shoes and Movado. (Hartman could not be reached for comment before deadline.)

Police eventually traced the laptop’s IP address to a wireless router in an Asian family’s South Philadelphia home.

“They knew from the pictures it wasn’t them,” she said. “They did some surveillance and got lucky.”

Police were able to identify the female suspect by matching her face to the Movado surveillance tape.

“They pulled her aside and the whole thing has unraveled from there,” Binswanger said.

Police have since retrieved Binswanger’s credit card, laptop and some other belongings, but some of the silver had been melted and sold to a third party.

“So that’s one of the challenges,” Binswanger said. “Stores are not keeping records of the items they’re receiving and they’re the middle man for melting it down.”

Still, Binswanger is grateful to everyone who was involved in the investigation, especially Detective Hartman and the Philadelphia Police Department. Though she knows they’re just doing their job, she is eager to repay them. She already knows how she wants to do it.

Binswanger was disheartened by what she saw when she went to the Northwest Detectives’ office at Broad and Champlost to identify silver that had been found in Gumminger’s South Philadelphia home.

“It looks like it’s out of a ‘40s movie set, with electrical wires hanging and duct tape on the air-conditioning units and chairs with no arms or arms that are falling apart,” she said, scarcely taking a breath. “None of the desks match … and nice, bright orange extension cords are linking things together.”

Binswanger believes the detectives “deserve to have an environment to work in that you and I would want to work in,” and she thinks some art for the walls would be a good start. She happens to have some eager artists at her disposal.

Binswanger is president of the board of trustees for Fresh Artists, an area nonprofit that reproduces and sells student artwork to raise money for art supplies at “under-resourced public schools,” according to a brochure for the program.

Along with Fresh Artists founder Barbara Allen, of Lafayette Hill, and board member Chris Hall, of Chestnut Hill, Binswanger is planning to organize an art drive, which will allow Northwest Philadelphians to donate art to the Northwest Detectives’ office.

But Binswanger’s plans are growing even more ambitious. She is in the early stages of coordinating a larger restoration project, which would piggyback on those renovations that have already been earmarked in the police department’s budget.

“Financial resources are limited,” she acknowledged. “So at what point do they finish?”

That isn’t a question Binswanger is prepared to answer. She has to do her “homework” first, but she’s already written an overview of her plans for the office: “It could certainly use some freshening up.”