OCEAN CITY — A Henderson, Md. man is being held without bond this week on first-degree burglary and other charges after resort police were able to connect him to a break-in at a downtown hotel in early August.
Around 9:30 a.m. on Aug. 4, an Ocean City Police Department (OCPD) officer responded to a hotel at 24th Street for a reported burglary. The officer met with the hotel manager, who reported two rooms on the fifth floor had been burglarized and surveillance cameras on the first floor had been damaged. The manager reportedly told police the televisions had been stolen from each of the rooms on the fifth floor that had been broken into.
The manager also told police the sliding glass doors at each of the victimized rooms had been shattered. The officer examined the shattered glass doors and found the majority of the broken glass was on the balcony side of the unit, suggesting the doors had been broken from the inside of the units, according to police reports. The officer also noticed the front door to one of the units had a large scuff mark on it. The other unit was damaged to the point it would not line up flush with the door frame, suggesting it had been forced open. The officer reviewed hotel surveillance footage and observed a suspect later identified as David Dixon, 37, of Henderson, Md., walk up a stairwell on the south side of the building a strike a surveillance camera several times with a hammer, according to police reports. The hotel manager also told police the front desk clerk appeared to be making a duplicate room key for a guest, and said it was unusual for an employee to be making a room key for a guest who had not approached the front desk.
According to police reports, one of the burglarized rooms was accessed utilizing a key card at around 4:30 a.m. that weekend. That room was not reserved and unoccupied at the time and was designated as a weekend rental only. The manager said no one on his staff had any reason to enter that room at that time of the morning.
Hotel surveillance video showed Dixon speaking with the desk clerk shortly after the video cameras in the stairwell were destroyed. According to police reports, it appeared from the video Dixon was familiar with the desk clerk and did not approach the front desk, but rather spoke to her from the doorway. According to the report, the officer determined Dixon had some sort of a relationship with the female desk clerk and was not a guest at the hotel.
The OCPD officer researched the desk clerk’s Facebook page and determined she was in a relationship with Dixon and pictures on the social media site matched his description. The officer contacted the desk clerk via telephone and she reportedly confirmed Dixon was her boyfriend. The female desk clerk reportedly told police she did provide Dixon with a blank key card on the morning of the incident so he could retrieve something from her car, but denied any knowledge of the burglaries.
OCPD detectives did not locate Dixon immediately following the incident, but instead filed charges of first-degree burglary, theft and malicious destruction of property against him. Dixon was taken into custody last week, nearly a month after the alleged burglary. He is being held without bond. The female desk clerk has not been charged.
