Burglar brings food, cooks meal, takes shower, gets arrested

YOUNGSTOWN

Police arrested a man Thursday with a history of breaking into homes, cooking meals with his own food and taking showers there.

Jacob Merchant, 33, is expected to be arraigned later today in municipal court on three counts of burglary and another two counts of breaking and entering for a series of incidents beginning Jan. 16 and culminating in an early Wednesday morning break in at a home in the first block of East Lucius Avenue.

In that case, a woman came home from work about 12:15 a.m. and found her kitchen ransacked, food all over and her stove used.

She then heard running water upstairs and went to check and found Merchant in her shower, reports said.

Detectives were able to find Merchant after checking video from a store that has the brand of eggs that police found at the burglary scenes.