SALEM – Police arrested a Windham man suspected in a series of car break-ins this past month after he peered into a decoy car police left out as bait for him.

Police said they witnessed Daniel Racca, 46, of Windham, pulling up to a decoy car police set up to catch the suspect on Monday, May 19.

After Racca pulled his car next to the decoy in the Mall at Rockingham Park parking lot, police said he looked at a global positioning system that had been planted inside the car and looked around for anyone who may be watching. He got in and out of his car several times.

“He walked around the decoy like three or four times,” Capt. Shawn Patten said. “He was casing it, without a question.”

Although Racca got back in his car and drove off when other people and cars entered the parking lot, police followed his maroon Nissan Pathfinder, which matched prior suspect car descriptions, and pulled him over for having a fraudulent car registration.

Patten said the investigation was a response to nearly two dozen similar thefts in which items like GPS devices were stolen from vehicles parked at several of the town’s many retail parking lots.

Patten said the department has staged similar decoys whenever there’s a string of one particular crime like vandalism or thefts in a particular part of town.

While Patten wouldn’t say Racca was a suspect in all of the vehicle break-ins and GPS device thefts, he said the man is suspected in several thefts since his car matched a vehicle description in several prior reports.

Racca was charged with criminal mischief, theft and false vehicle registration and was arraigned on Tuesday, May 20, at Salem District Court. Racca is being held on $10,000 cash bail. Police executed a search warrant on Racca’s car on Tuesday, May 20. Several tools like window punches, gloves and flashlights were plainly visible through car windows, Patten said.