Retired Cop Testifies in Burglary Trial

By Nicholas Winarto

After a week-long break, Department 8 resumed the long-standing burglary trial on Monday with testimony from a retired Davis Police Department officer, Debra Doroshov.

Officer Doroshov was a part of the Davis Police Department from 1990-2014. Ms. Doroshov first started off as a communication dispatcher before becoming a police service specialist. She was also a part of the crime prevention unit before switching back to being a police service specialist for the remainder of her career.

Deputy District Attorney Michelle Serafin began by asking Ms. Doroshov what her job involved.

As a police service specialist, Ms. Doroshov responded to calls on the business line for crimes that are not in progress, and was responsible for gathering information at the scene. Then, she would generate police reports out of the information gathered by interviewing the victims. Toward the end of her career, Ms. Doroshov said that she would make anywhere between 300-350 crime reports per year.

Ms. Serafin then asked about the burglaries tied into the trial to which Ms. Doroshov has responded.

The first burglary in question was on November 13, 2012, where Ms. Doroshov responded to a call at an apartment complex located on Glacier Drive in northwest Davis. At the scene, she interviewed and recorded the names of three victims that had their property stolen before going inside and inspecting the apartment. Inside the apartment, Ms. Doroshov noted that the windows and doors did not show signs of forced entry.

When asked if she looked for fingerprints in the home, Ms. Doroshov stated that it is difficult to obtain fingerprints from certain crime scenes. For instance, rough, uneven surfaces such as wood or anything that is old and has scratches makes lifting prints problematic because you would end up seeing partial prints or the scratches instead of the fingerprint. Additionally, when objects are lifted rather than moved, prints cannot be taken because the surrounding environment has not been touched by the burglar.

Ms. Doroshov went on to investigate an additional five burglaries in 2013. In all the cases, fingerprints were never lifted and there were no apparent signs of forced entry.

On July 11, 2013, Ms. Doroshov responded to a burglary on Anderson Road wherein the victim had property stolen from the kitchen countertop and her room. Through her investigation of the victim’s house on Anderson, she found that the sliding glass door was left unlocked. The burglary on August 27, 2013 occurred on Drexel Drive, wherein the victims had a television stolen between 10-10:30 a.m.

Another burglary occurred on Anderson on September 25, 2013, at a single-family residence. Ms. Doroshov did not enter the house based on the information from the victim and stood outside the front door, where the living area was in plain sight. The victim found a charge, on the debit card that was stolen, for the McDonald’s on Chiles Road in South Davis and sent an email with the date, time, and transaction amount to Ms. Doroshov for further investigation.

After interviewing the victim, Ms. Doroshov went to the McDonald’s on Chiles, where the manager assisted her. The manager was able to pull the transaction records from the information given by Ms. Doroshov and verified that the stolen debit card was used at McDonald’s. The manager, along with a technician, assisted Ms. Doroshov in pulling surveillance footage from the date of the transaction, but because the present party was unable to burn the footage to a CD, Ms. Doroshov took still photographs of the footage.

The prosecution presented the stills after they were identified by Ms. Doroshov. During the testimony, Ms. Doroshov described the surveillance footage from McDonald’s and identified a red, four-door sedan pulling into the drive-through around the time when the stolen debit card was used. She identified four passengers in total, two of them being males that she saw because they were standing outside the car at the drive-through.

The next day, September 26, 2013, Ms. Doroshov went back to the McDonald’s on Chiles Road to interview the drive-through workers before going across the street to the Chevron station where a charge of $54.70 for gas and a car wash was incurred on the stolen debit card. Unfortunately, there are no security cameras at the pumps, but the car wash did have some. Ms. Doroshov was also unable to obtain a hard copy of the security footage from Chevron. From the car wash security footage, Ms. Doroshov identified the same car that was at McDonald’s. She saw that one of the passengers was a woman because she sat behind the driver, and stuck her head out to punch in the code for the car wash.

Two burglaries occurred in October, the first on the 9^th on Valdora Street in South Davis at approximately 11:20 a.m., and the second on the 11^th at a duplex at Oeste Drive and Russell Boulevard. In both cases, no damage to the windows or doors were done.

Ms. Serafin ended her questions.

Defense Attorney James Granucci asked Ms. Doroshov if she ever went back to McDonald’s or Chevron, if the videos were ever obtained, and her answer was that she did not know, because she had no idea if the investigators went to get hard copies.

The defense counsel then asked Ms. Doroshov if, at any point during her investigations, she thought to canvass the surrounding area, to which she said no. The reason she had not done so was that nothing from the victims’ statements gave her the idea that a neighbor was home to witness any of the burglaries.

Court was then dismissed.