DNA sample leads to pasta poacher

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This article was published 18/03/2022 (1220 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A DNA sample was the damning evidence which led investigators to find a thief who stole goods from the Southland Church Donation Centre in 2019.

Elton Verestiuk was caught by way of a speck of blood collected from the scene of the crime during the December 2019 investigation. A broken window cut Verestiuk during his heist from which Mounties swabbed a blood sample later while they surveyed the scene.

Surveillance footage showed a masked individual breaking into the centre through a window and filling their backpack with goods before fleeing into the night. The next morning a property manager called police after discovering the broken window and noticed the missing items and shelves in disarray.

“It was an unsolved case but for the fact that they had this blood,” Crown attorney Peter Edgett told Steinbach court last Thursday during a disposition on the matter.

Upon testing the sample in their database officers found a match with a sample Verestiuk submitted to officers after a previous conviction mandated his DNA be put on record. Verestiuk has a previous theft conviction from 2017 which led him to serving 45 days of pre-sentence custody, 12 months of probation and ordered to pay $600 in restitution.

Verestiuk apologized to Judge Larry Allen for the theft.

“I have friends within the church and there’s better options,” he said.

Allen said sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures; among the inventory in the donation centre some of the nabbed goods were Kraft Dinner and pasta sauce.

“If you’re hungry, go to people like that and say, “you know what, I need food” and they just give it to you rather than break the window,” the judge told Verestiuk.

In addition to an 18-month suspended sentence Verestiuk issued a formal apology to Southland Church leaders and performed community service for them. In return, Southland Church did not seek protective orders from Verestiuk.