YARMOUTH, MASS. (WHDH) - A Yarmouth man is facing a charge of breaking and entering into a vehicle after a woman said she found him in the back seat of her car while she was driving early Monday morning, officials said.
According to the police department, an officer patrolling near the Route 6 Exit ramp around 1 a.m. found a vehicle he thought was disabled and when he went to check on it, found a woman outside of it attempting to call 911, who appeared scared and upset.
“The woman said she did not notice anything out of the ordinary after leaving her friend’s house, but a short time later a light came on inside her car while driving. As she looked into the back seat, she was surprised to see a man hiding with a coat pulled over his head,” the department stated on Facebook.
“She looked and saw that there was a man sleeping in the back of her car with a jacket pulled over his head and she screamed, he screamed” said Yarmouth Police Officer Nicholas Giammarco.
Police said the man fell out of the car and the driver took off, eventually pulling off the road where the patrol officer later found her. Following a brief investigation, police were able to show the driver a mugshot, which she confirmed was the man she saw.
A short time later, Jailton Dos Santos, 36, of South Yarmouth, was arrested at his mom’s Cape Cod home. Authorities said Dos Santos was either looking for shelter or trying to steal something at the time of the incident, but was not considered to be violent.
Since then, police have been reminding residents to make sure they lock their unattended vehicles, especially at night.
“When you’re leaving your vehicle unattended, lock the doors, roll up the windows, take valuables with you,” Giammarco said. “And when you get back in that vehicle, just take a quick look around, make sure that everything looks normal, looks the way that you left it.”
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