A 19-year-old Charlottesville man was arrested Aug. 29 for breaking and entering and burglary of three University area apartments.
According to Charlottesville General District Court records, Lawrence Irving Roundtree is charged with three felony counts including two burglary charges and one breaking and entering charge. Each incident took place at all-female apartments where the suspect allegedly attempted to steal women's underwear and pictures.
The first incident occurred May 18, 2001 at an apartment on Fourth Street Northeast. The last two incidents occurred Aug. 9 and 12 on 14th Street and Wertland Street respectively.
Roundtree is currently being held without bond at the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail.
Police implicated Roundtree using fingerprints left on the windowsill of a Wertland Street apartment broken into in the Aug. 12 incident.
On that date at about 6:30 p.m., according to fourth-year College student Tamsen Grigonis, she was preparing for a shower when she heard blinds rustling and confronted a man climbing through her kitchen window over the sink.
When she confronted him, the man said, "Oh, sorry" and fled the scene.
"It's a pretty small window so I'm not sure if he would have been able to get all the way through, but the blinds were down so I couldn't see his face," Grigonis said.
According to Grigonis, the apartment window is approximately seven feet above ground level.
"When the detectives came, we were looking at it and we couldn't figure out how he did it," Grigonis said. "My roommate had just left about five minutes before, so we think that he thought no one was home."
Although it is still unclear how the alleged assailant reached the window, Roundtree's handprint was prominent on the windowsill.
"He left his handprint right on the window," Grigonis said. "He pretty much signed his name. The forensics detective who was out there was really excited about that."
On Aug. 9 at approximately 1 a.m., Roundtree allegedly broke into the kitchen window of a third-floor apartment on 14th Street, Charlottesville Police Sgt. Dave Jones said.
Jaclyn Lucca, a second-year Architecture graduate student, and one of her roommates were sleeping at home when the break-in occurred.
"The first bedroom that he went into was my roommate Courtney's, and he went through some of her personal belongings -- underwear, shoes and pictures," Lucca said.
The burglar then tried to enter another room but the door was locked.
"He went to the kitchen and got a butter knife and he popped the door," Lucca said.
The resident inside that room "realized that her bedroom door was open but that it was still locked, but everything was just pitch black," Lucca said. My roommate "followed him into the living room and he ran away. Then she called me on her cell phone from her room, and I told her to call the police."
Although the burglar did not take any high-value possessions, Lucca and her roommates found underwear and pictures of themselves outside the apartment the next day.
"The one weird detail is that he went through all of [my roommate's] underwear, and he took a stack of black bras and hid them underneath our couch," Lucca said.
In the May 2001 burglary on Fourth Street Northeast, a cell phone was taken. Some clothing, including a pair of women's underwear, had been moved. No one was home at the time of the incident.
Jones said this type of serial breaking and entering is not unusual and that the Charlottesville police have dealt with similar cases in the past.
"They come and go," said Jones. "Any time you've got a university environment like this, you have to expect that sooner or later."
The police encourage students to report any suspicious incidents immediately.
"You want to stop this because you never know when it might evolve into something more sinister," Jones added.
Jones said that in addition to the felony charges, Roundtree also was a witness to a burglary in December 2001 and has a previous criminal record.
"He has involvements going back to when he was a juvenile," Jones said.
According to police, Roundtree's bond hearing will go forward no earlier than Tuesday.
"He's in jail so he's not going to be stealing any panties tonight," Jones said.
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