Pair arrested in series of break-ins

CONVENT — St. James Parish sheriff’s deputies said Thursday they issued arrest warrants for two suspects in a multi-parish string of home break-ins.

Dwayne Earl Blair Jr., 31, 1005 Central Ave., Westwego, and Shalyn Oser, 17, 5544 Ames Court, Marrero, are wanted on two counts of simple burglary stemming from incidents in Gramercy on April 13, deputies said in a news release Thursday.

A task force of detectives from St. James, St. Charles, Lafourche, Ascension, St. John and Jefferson parishes and the cities of Gonzales and Westwego have been investigating those and other similar burglaries, St. James Parish sheriff’s deputies said.

Task force detectives arrested Blair and Oser on separate charges Friday in Jefferson Parish. Additional charges are pending from multiple jurisdictions, St. James sheriff’s deputies said.

St. Charles Parish Sheriff’s Capt. Patrick Yoes said Blair is believed to have committed hundreds of burglaries in the region over the past two to three years, saying investigators have been told the burglaries were his only source of income.

Yoes said Blair would hit one area and then move to another area, using rental cars to keep investigators off his trail.

Yoes said Oser participated in a number of the burglaries. Blair and Oser would wait for residents to leave their homes and then Blair would kick in a door and rob the house while Oser acted as a lookout, Yoes said.

Detectives were able to trace the rented vehicles to the renter and began piecing together multiple crimes, St. James deputies said.