Although charges have yet to be filed, police have connected a suspect to the Haines Senior Center break-in after locating stolen, pyramid-shaped $2 bills that had decorated a Senior Center windowsill and were later spent at the local pot shop.
“They busted out the window, ransacked the office and took all the donation money, plus the money that was in my drawer,” said Senior Center manager Cari O’Daniel.
She said the burglar stole between $300 and $400, personal checks and about 21 $2 bills folded into pyramid shapes that decorated her windowsill.
A Senior Center employee noticed the broken window on Feb. 23 when he arrived to work at 6:30 a.m., according to a police report. In his report, investigating officer Max Jusi wrote that little evidence was found beyond a Three Musketeers candy bar, which didn’t belong to anyone at the Senior Center, and the absence of the pyramid-shaped $2 bills that would “leave permanent creasing in the bills.”
“I did not find any blood or other DNA evidence,” Jusi wrote. “No fingerprints were able to be lifted. Snow on the ground was not conducive to casting, and footprint patterns were not discernable.”
On the morning following the break-in, Winter Greens owner Brad Adams told police a man purchased items from his marijuana retail store with $2 bills “that had some very unique creasing.” Adams, who eats lunch at the Senior Center, was familiar with the pyramid-shaped bills made by Neil Einsbruch, who also frequents the facility during lunchtime. When Jusi spoke with Einsbruch, the magician and origami artist “made a positive confirmation that these bills had previously been in the shape of a pyramid, made by him.”
O’Daniel said Einsbruch would give her a $2 pyramid bill each time he came to eat lunch. Einsbruch told the CVN he’s been making the origami bills for the past four years and gives them out as gifts and party favors.
“I buy a whole bunch of them and I give them out. I’ll make seventy-five of them and put them in an empty fish bowl and give them for a wedding gift; Here’s some twos for the two of ya,” Einsbruch said. “This was the first time my magic instigated a crime, and (maybe) solved it.”
A Winter Greens employee was able to positively identify the suspect who spent the uniquely creased $2 bills at the store. When contacted by police, the suspect said he had been in the area of the harbor and Tlingit Park during the early morning hours of Feb. 23.
Security cameras recorded an individual in the area during the time of the break in. The person was in the Tlingit Park longhouse and walked south through the park when Haines Highway surveillance footage showed the individual, who had “a distinct gait,” according to police, continuing across the highway toward the post office and Dusty Trails Apartments.
“(The suspect’s) gait is identical to the person leaving the longhouse,” Jusi wrote.
The suspect initially told police he bought the $2 bills from a man near the harbor boat ramp, but later said he sold the man two grams of methamphetamine and received the $2 bills as payment.
Melissa Ganey’s unlocked vehicle, parked at the harbor during the same time period as the Senior Center break-in, had also been ransacked. Whoever broke into Ganey’s car rifled through her belongings, and left a hatchet on the passenger seat. Police chief Heath Scott said Monday that at this time the two incidents are believed to be unconnected.