Scottsdale’s three phantoms still out there

Scottsdale’s three phantoms — the rock burglar, the mail bomber and Robert Fisher — continue to evade capture.

Leads about the three highprofile figures’ whereabouts have been scant, and investigators’ efforts to find them have been unsuccessful. The phantoms remain at large . . .

The rock burglar: Scottsdale police said Monday they obtained a photo of a man they believe may be the infamous burglar.

The rock burglar has broken into more than 300 luxury houses in Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, Carefree and the Biltmore area of Phoenix for 12 years. He steals jewelry, cash and guns whenever he pleases.

The police photo is of a man known in California as the Bel Air burglar. "We believe that it may be one and the same guy," Scottsdale detective Sam Bailey said Monday.

If the man is the rock burglar, it would mark the biggest break in the case since police linked the rock burglar to a white, long-bed Ford F-150 pickup in September 2003.

The surveillance camera photo shows a white man, about 40 to 50 years old with grayish hair, dressed in black inside a house.

However, there are differences in the styles of the burglars.

The rock burglar usually gains entrance into houses by throwing a rock, patio furniture or other heavy objects through back windows. In contrast, the Bel Air burglar generally slips through back doors.

Is the burglar a jeweler by day? A neighborhood regular, such as a landscaper, a real estate agent or a cop? One guess is as good as the next.

The mail bomber: The last development authorities have disclosed in the Don Logan package bombing was on March 1, 2004.

U.S. Postal Inspection Service agents said the package bomb that exploded in Logan’s hands may have been in the Civic Center Library six days before the blast on Feb. 26, 2004. Investigators contacted more than 100 people who attended a function at the library that night, to no avail.

The bomb, sent to the city’s Human Resources Complex, injured Logan, the city’s diversity director, Renita Linyard, a secretary, and Jacque Bell, a human resources representative.

Is the bomber a former city employee with a grudge? Is he ethnically motivated?

Robert Fisher: The last real break in the search for the triple-murder suspect was on April 20, 2001, when authorities found his car and his dog, but not him, in a wilderness area northeast of Young.

Ten days earlier, his south Scottsdale house exploded. Police discovered the bodies of his wife Mary, 38, and children Brittney, 12, and Bobby, 10, inside the burned house.

Is Fisher dead in a cave near Young? Is he tending bar in Virginia?

The phantoms are out there. Somewhere.