Chandler Drive Apartment Burglarized

Police are investigating a break-in that occurred Wednesday at an apartment on Chandler Drive.

The perpetrator pried open the front door of an unoccupied Fair Lawn Park Estates apartment in the afternoon or early evening while the tenant was at work and ransacked the master bedroom, police said. Electronic devices were reported taken.

Detective Lt. Michael Uttel called the burglary "very unusual," because apartment break-ins are rare in Fair Lawn. For that reason, police aren't ruling out that the victim may have been acquainted with the perpetrator. 

Wednesday's burglary was Fair Lawn's second residential burglary in less than a week. An Elliott Terrace home was broken into last Saturday, Uttel said.

Neither of the recent break-ins show any similarity to the string of commercial burglaries this spring that police have tied to a serial burglar suspected in more than 150 smash-and-grabs throughout northern New Jersey since 2009, Uttel said.

The serial smash-and-grabber has stayed off the police's radar since June, but Uttel said it's around this time of year that he usually becomes active after taking the summer off.

Editor's note: A earlier version of this article stated an Everett Terrace home was burglarized, when it was in fact an Elliott Terrace home.

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