Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 4, 1993 TAG: 9303040272
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: Medium
BURGLARY SUSPECT HAS A FAMILIAR FACE
J.N. Hoover, a Virginia Beach police officer, almost fell off his seat when he saw the photo of burglary suspect Angel Taylor on television a few months ago.Hoover phoned his former lieutenant: Hadn't Taylor just been put away two years ago for the same thing?
About the same time, Michael L. Whitley read Taylor's name in the newspaper. Whitley and his wife - who were among Taylor's victims in 1987 - figured they wouldn't have to worry about him being loose for a long time.
They were wrong, and Hoover's memory was accurate.
Police in December charged Taylor, 31, and a teen-ager in several Chesapeake burglaries, and called them suspects in as many as 150 break-ins across Hampton Roads that possibly netted $500,000 in pilfered property.
James W. "Angel" Taylor Jr. is a convicted burglar in three states who is well-known to local authorities. "He's not your usual burglar," said Detective C.W. "Billy" Green of the Chesapeake Police Department. "He learns every time. If they would've quit, we would've never caught them."
But catching Taylor may be easier than keeping him. He has benefited from prisons that need space for more dangerous felons, a parole system that can miss out-of-state criminal histories and a police system struggling with more urgent crimes than household burglaries.
In a jail interview, Taylor said others had taken the estimated $200,000 in stolen items that police found in a Virginia Beach storage shed rented in his name. He said he was just selling them to help pay for his drug habit.
Charges against Taylor and his co-defendant, Calvin J. Sweat, 18, of Chesapeake, have been sent to the Circuit Court grand jury.
Taylor was paroled from the Powhatan Correctional Center last May 8 after serving a little more than two years of a 12-year sentence for what police called the largest burglary ring in Virginia Beach history.
Chesapeake police didn't know Taylor was free because he was paroled to Virginia Beach, where he had been convicted.
In August, the new batch of burglaries began sweeping through Chesapeake and other nearby cities. Police dubbed the crooks the "neat burglars" because they protected carpets and sometimes took showers in their victims' homes.
Before Powhatan, Taylor served prison terms for burglary in New York and Georgia.
Out-of-state criminal records are considered by the Parole Board but aren't always available, said Mindy A. Daniels, the board chairman's executive assistant.
She didn't know whether the board was aware of Taylor's criminal background, or how much his record mattered if they were. Based on the information the board had, it appeared that Taylor would be a good parole risk, Daniels said.
Burglary gets little public attention, even though it directly affects many people.
Relatively few burglars get caught, said Leonard E. Dobrin of Old Dominion University.