Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 10, 1994                   TAG: 9403100179
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By MEGAN SCHNABEL STAFF WRITER NOTE: Above
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SLEEPING WAS WRONG THING TO DO

Especially if you're in a store where you don't belong and you doze off next to a handcart loaded with store merchandise.

And you're wearing a stolen police uniform that doesn't belong to you.

``Being down on the Market, you see a lot of unusual things,'' said Tom Anderton, owner of Sam's on the Market in downtown Roanoke. ``After 15 years, we thought we had seen everything.''

Not quite.

Awakened at 4:30 a.m. Wednesday by a call from Roanoke police, store manager Craig Anderton arrived at Sam's to find that the bottom half of the glass front door had been smashed out and the top half had fallen ``like a guillotine,'' blocking the hole.

Police found plenty of evidence of entry, he said, but no sign of exit. Apparently, the intruder, who police said had just smashed his way into the store, may have believed he was trapped inside when the rest of the pane dropped into place behind him.

In the store, police saw what they thought was a mannequin - dressed in a Roanoke police uniform - lying on a counter, Craig Anderton said.

That wouldn't have been unusual, because the store sells such uniforms in addition to work clothes and boots.

But the dummy was rather lifelike.

``As they got closer, they heard it snoring,'' he said with a laugh.

Tom Anderton said the burglar may have become frustrated when he thought he was trapped inside, and donned the police getup to make himself inconspicuous when the real police showed up.

It might have worked, too, if he hadn't sacked outfallen asleep on the counter.

The mannequin turned out to be Marcus Stanley Wilhelm, 20, of Michigan Avenue Northwest, police said. He was sound asleep when ``apprehended,'' decked out in a brand new Roanoke police jacket and combat boots.

Wilhelm was charged with breaking and entering and attempted grand larceny and was held on $2,500 bond.