One Charged, Two Suspects at Large in Greenfield Burglary Case

An 18-year-old Milwaukee man has been charged with felony burglary after police say he and two others broke into a Greenfield home, struck a man who lived there in the head with a crowbar and stole the man’s safe.

Peter Cresci was charged in Milwaukee County Circuit Court on March 14, nine days after the victim identified Cresci and other evidence pointed to him as one of the three men who broke in.

The two other suspects remain at large.

According to the Greenfield Police Department report, the victim, who lives in the 4400 block of South 43rd Street, told police he was in his bedroom around noon March 5, when he heard someone trying to enter into the side door.

The victim went out into the hallway, where he saw three men. He ran back into the bedroom and grabbed a chair to protect himself. One of the men came into the room and hit the suspect in the head with a crowbar, the suspect told police.

Another man pulled the suspect out of the room by the neck. The man who struck the victim with the crowbar then struck him three or four times in the face, the victim told police.

The victim told police the trio made off with a safe that contained approximately $1,800 in cash.

The men suspected of robbery left snow prints as they fled on foot from the residence; multiple witnesses told police they saw the men in the neighborhood at the time of the incident. Another witness said the men got into a smaller, dark-colored two-door vehicle parked in the 4400 block of West Bottsford Avenue and leave the area.

Cresci was eventually traced back to a home in Waukesha, and Waukesha police stopped a vehicle with Cresci and three others in it a short time later. He was subsequently arrested.

Cresci’s preliminary hearing is scheduled for March 22. He was on probation after being charged with two misdemeanor counts of theft of removable property last July following an arrest for his part in a burglary in West Allis.