newjerseynewsroom.com

John, Katharine, Charlie and Matilda Myers of Bloomfield were attending a wedding in Madison when their bag was snatched

BY BOB HOLT

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

The camera of a vacationing New Jersey family who posed for a picture in front of the Wisconsin State Capitol captured more than they expected. It also caught a thief.

John Myers and his family from Bloomfield, New Jersey, were visiting Madison, Wisconsin, to attend a friend's wedding Saturday at the state Capitol.

Myers said the family went outside after the ceremony to take pictures. He decided it would be a good idea to take a family portrait with his digital camera, and he set a bag down next to the building before stepping away to snap the shot.

Myers — as he took the picture — also caught a person red-handed stealing his bag.

"Looking back now it wasn't a good idea to leave my bag so far away," Myers told CNN on Tuesday. "But I just wasn't thinking of it at the time."

Myers looked at the picture quickly but admits he was checking just to make sure everyone came out OK. It was only after walking away that he realized he had forgotten his bag — which contained his wallet, hotel and rental car keys and other family valuables.

Myers said that when he returned to the spot, the bag was missing. No one had turned it in at the information center inside the Capitol.

An Associated Press article at NJ.com reports that after Myers discovered the bag missing, he checked his camera. Sure enough, the image showed a man picking up the bag. Myers realized then that it had been stolen.

Myers told the Wisconsin State Journal that he showed the photo to Wisconsin Capitol police officers, who recognized the man.

"The Capitol Police are amazing," Myers said, according to the Wisconsin State Journal. "I fully expected to have them tell us to just fill a report [out] or [to] tell us there wasn't much they could do, but [they] responded immediately and because they did, they were able to catch [a suspect]."

After Myers showed the pictures, two officers were immediately dispatched to look for a suspect, while a third stayed with Myers and sent out a description. Within 15 minutes, Myers said, police had arrested a suspect and also located the bag and all his belongings, some of which had been thrown away during the heist.

The suspect, identified as Glenn R. Lambright, 59, of no permanent address, pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor theft. He told police he found the bag abandoned, the Wisconsin State Journal reports.

He was released Tuesday from Dane County Jail on a signature bond. The alleged thief was still carrying the family's bag when he was caught.

The suspect pleaded not guilty Tuesday to misdemeanor theft.