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"No matter how small of an investigation, we're going to try to take it to completion. That's what the citizens of Normandy Park pay us to do," said Chief Chris Gaddis with the Normandy Park Police Department.
Gilbert said the thief was stealing the baskets since July.
"A lot of worrying, and my wife was getting pretty tired of buying flowers. And just now feeling safe -- we thought he was mad at us. We didn't know what the motive was," said Gilbert.
He even caught the thief in the act on surveillance video, but detectives still weren't able to catch the man.
Detectives then got creative and decided to put a GPS tracking device inside one of the hanging baskets.
"It sat for a good two months and I thought -- I don’t know if this is actually going to happen," said Gaddis.
Then a few weeks ago, Gaddis got an email alert.
"I got the email and said the tracker's moving so I hopped on my iPad and go, ‘Hey -- this is really moving this time," said Gaddis.
Detectives found the suspect at his house in Des Moines and arrested him.
They also recovered five hanging baskets that belonged to Gilbert.
Frank Todaro was arrested for criminal trespassing and theft, but was later released.
When we asked him about the theft, he admitted to taking the baskets but wouldn't say why.
"If we can set a sting up like this, then absolutely if we have the resources and the time we're going to investigate it," said Gaddis.
He also said that detectives are considering using the same tactic to catch package thieves this holiday season.
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