The recent info dump courtesy of the SCSD included this interesting comment:

Only one other cat burglary series (albeit brief, and with a different M.O.) was occurring simultaneous to this series. When caught, the suspects in that case said they saw the success the cat burglar of Rancho Cordova was having, and thought it was an easy crime to commit (for them it wasn't.)

There's only this brief mention of this case but I have so many questions. I've posed them to Morf over on proboards in the Det. Ken Clark Q&A thread. Note that the call for questions closes in a couple days!

Questions:

• Multiple offenders acting in the same team said this?
• How old were they?
• Were the offenders mixed gender?
• How were the offenders related?
• How were they evaluating the success of the RC cat burglar?
• Were they also hot prowling?
• Were they acting for-profit?
• Did they have a fence?
• Was the fence known to LE?
• Are we certain they didn't know the RC cat burglar personally?
• Did they live in the area?
• Had they been incarcerated recently relative to this crime spree of theirs?
• Have they been re-questioned recently?

This case could be huge or it could be nothing. It's such a rare crime and a team of offenders (I should ask how many) inspired to carry it out ostensibly due to perceived success of the '72-'73 cat burglar (who may very well be EAR) sets off my spider senses (dumb pun intended.) I can't help but think in the early days before anything too serious happened the EAR was very young and having a ton of fun with this hobby and may have been more likely to share details of it with others he may have trusted. Possibly working with them to some extent. In any case, if I were an investigator I'd latch onto this lead like a pit bull (for all I know maybe they have.)

Curious to hear others' thoughts on this.