On Thursday, February 13, 2020, Salem Police detectives arrested Joshua Brady Harmon, age 22 of Salem, in connection with almost 40 cases of burglary and theft.
Detectives have been able to connect Harmon with burglaries starting in January but think he may be involved in crimes as far back as December of 2019. Detectives in the Property Crimes Unit worked together to identify Harmon as a suspect after analyzing a list of pawned items. Once Harmon was identified as a suspect, detectives conducted surveillance on him which ultimately lead to the traffic stop that nabbed him.
Detectives executed search warrants on Harmon’s car and home, where they recovered additional stolen property. Harmon was booked into the Polk County Jail but will also face charges in Marion County. His charges range from burglary in the first degree to theft in the third degree.
Detective Daniel Chase said, “When Detective Alex Asay showed me the list of stolen items, I knew we had him (Harmon). I let my partner, Detective Jeff Gordon, know and we started linking all the cases. Without everyone’s help it would have been tough to catch Harmon.”
Cases like these are solved because of community members who keep track of serial numbers or apply identification numbers to high value items. We encourage people to keep a list of serial numbers in the event a theft or loss occurs. Officers can enter those numbers into a searchable database which can lead to the recovery of stolen items or the arrest of a suspect.
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Harmon's age has been corrected to 22 years old.