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Prescription medication was stolen from Swann’s Pharmacy on Tuesday, Aug. 24, 2021, in a crime police say might be related to other break-ins across the region.
HILLSBORO, Kan. – A Dec. 11 burglary in Hillsboro, Kansas, may be linked to a similar crime that occurred in Watonga months before.
The Hillsboro Star-Journal reported last month that $8,645 worth of drugs were stolen from Hillsboro Hometown Pharmacy that Saturday evening – a brazen break-in on a busy street, across the road from the police department.
According to the paper, the burglar broke through the pharmacy’s glass front door about 7 p.m. and was in the building for eight minutes before making off with the drugs, including hydrocodone and oxycontin.
It’s a modus operandi strikingly similar to the one used on Aug. 24, when a thief busted through the glass front door of Swann Pharmacy in Watonga and stole about $3,300 in medication, including hydrocodone.
That Watonga break-in came just hours after another burglary at a Dodge City, Kansas, pharmacy. Watonga police suspected at the time that the two crimes were related.
The connection between the Hillsboro burglary and the Watonga and Dodge City crimes was made by Hillsboro police, the Star-Journal said, who said they learned that from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.
A KBI spokesperson told the Watonga Republican the agency offered informational support and consulted with local authorities on the burglary, but is not investigating the case at this time.