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

DATE: SATURDAY, September 9, 1995                   TAG: 9509110055
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BURGLAR WHO MAILED OFF BOOTY GETS 35 YEARS

A man whom prosecutors called the "express mail jewelry bandit" was sentenced this week to 35 years in prison for burglarizing a Roanoke jewelry store and mailing the plunder out of town.

Michael M. McDaniel, who has four previous burglary convictions, will not be eligible for parole because the break-in at Fink's Jewelers at Valley View Mall happened in February, one month after the state's no-parole law took effect.

The jury's sentence, just five years short of the maximum, was unusually harsh for a crime in which no one was injured.

"I think they punished him because he's a career criminal more than they did for the actual crime," Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Greg Phillips said after the jury's verdict late Thursday in Roanoke Circuit Court.

Since the Fink's break-in, McDaniel, 39, has been charged with a similar jewelry store burglary in Savannah, Ga. He is a suspect in as many as 60 other jewelry heists across the country, Phillips said.

"Everyone in their life has to choose a career, and that's what he chose to do," Phillips said.

In a case based entirely on circumstantial evidence, the strongest link between McDaniel and the early-morning Roanoke burglary was testimony from a handwriting expert who said the suspect's handwriting matched that found on three express mail packages full of stolen jewelry.

Postal inspector Kevin Boyle noticed the suspicious packages shortly after the burglary, and authorities were led to McDaniel after the addressee agreed to cooperate in the investigation.

Phillips called the break-in a professional job; authorities still are uncertain how McDaniel got into Valley View Mall at 2:30 a.m. Feb. 10. Once inside, he used wire cutters to slip through the chain gate covering the store's entrance and removed about $60,000 worth of gold rings and chains from the showcases.

A surveillance camera captured the break-in on film, but the man wearing dark clothes and a mask could not be identified.

McDaniel, who had maintained his innocence through an earlier trial that ended with a hung jury, did not testify.

by CNB