According to PGPD detective Adam Sepagan, Patrick James Ayers stole liquor from the Pacific Grove Safeway on June 19, 2008.

The suspect escaped, but the officer recovered the bottle of hard alcohol the man dropped, and police managed to lift some fingerprints from its surface, according to Sepagan.

“We submitted the prints to the Monterey County crime lab, they were able to find a match, and we were able to get him ID’ed,” he explained. Because more serious crimes take priority in the lab, months had passed before a technician had time to run the prints through the system.

Long Lead Times At Crime Lab