To Catch a Thief

While police detectives braced his legs, Milwaukee Sentinel Photographer James G. Conklin, 40, leaned perilously out over the narrow building ledge and aimed his camera at the ground, seven stories below. Magnified by the camera's 300-mm. telescopic lens, the subject loomed sharp and clear. Conklin set his motorized shutter, and his camera caught twelve pictures of a thief in the act (see cuts).

The Sentinel's pictures, spread all over Page One one morning last week, were all the evidence Milwaukee police needed to arrest John Allen Thomas, 44, a Brink's guard assigned to collect nickels from parking meters under a contract with the city. Tipped more than a month ago that most of Thomas' take was winding up in his own pocket, the Sentinel called in the police. Together they worked out their plan for trapping the coin pilferer with Conklin's camera. Confronted with graphic evidence of his guilt, Thomas confessed stealing nearly $500 in nickels in eight weeks. Said Photographic Thief Catcher Conklin: "I feel kind of sorry for the guy. But like they say, I guess crime doesn't pay."

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