After Scores of Crimes in the 'Burbs, Ballwin Bandit Is Busted

When you're able to pull off more than 100 crimes in the suburbs -- more than 50 crimes in the affluent city of Ballwin alone -- to support your heroin habit, prompting multiple police jurisdictions, along with the U.S. Marshals, to engage in a collaborative manhunt to bring you down, offering a $1,000 reward for a tip that leads to an arrest ... then you need a nickname.

The Ballwin Bandit? The Suburban Swindler? The Heroin Terror? Jeremy the Junkie?

Call him what you will, but police finally caught up to St. John resident Jeremy Burkhalter, one of St. Louis County's most prolific thieves, yesterday morning in Town & Country.

"Our detectives were at the station meeting up with detectives from other police departments, along with U.S. Marshals, to track down Burkhalter when he came right into the lair," Town & Country Police Cpt. Gary Hoelzer told Patch.com, a news website that has been is covering the story.

Early in the morning, cops spotted Burkhalter, 27, driving a stolen car from Kirkwood. They tailed him down a residential road, leading him toward another cop car. Once Burkhalter realized he was surrounded, he pulled into a driveway, abandoned the car and led police officers on a foot chase through a local park.

Officers and detectives from Des Peres, Kirkwood, Maryland Heights and Ladue converged on the area, and Burkhalter was taken into custody without incident.

Sergeant Jim Heldmann of the Ballwin Police Department told Patch.com that his department likely will charge Burkhalder with upwards of 50 crimes committed in Ballwin.

"There's a lot of departments out there that want him, so we're going to have to get down there and try to get in the line of the people who want to question him," Heldmann told the website.

Patch also reported that Berkhalter was brazen enough to return to the jurisdictions where officers were looking for him in order to support his heroin addiction. "He was going to commit crimes until he was caught, to feed his habit," Hoelzer said.