The victim of a malicious break-in last August says she’s still awaiting action from Burnaby RCMP despite identifying a suspect for them.

Anisa Irwin, 25, and her husband Travis Baribeau, 30, returned from a weekend camping trip on Aug. 3 to their South Burnaby home to discover it had been broken into and vandalized.

In addition to stealing numerous items, including expensive tools, the culprit had propped the fridge door open so the food would rot, threw food and garbage around the house, smashed their TV, computer monitor and guitars, poured soap into the back of the computer, and dumped plants and dirt throughout the living room.

Then the thief moved to the basement where the same thing was done with the belongings of the couple’s roommate. Bottles were smashed, liquid was poured in dressers, the vacuum was stabbed.

Irwin estimates total damage was about $10,000 and they were not insured.

Burnaby RCMP responded, documented footprints and checked for fingerprints.

About three weeks later, Irwin said, they learned the person responsible was a man who had a prior relationship with the basement resident. They immediately informed police but have yet to see any action.

She said the officer investigating simply told her he’s had other cases of higher priority. Meanwhile, Irwin says, the suspect, who was on probation for stealing a plane, was convicted earlier this month for a serious assault in which a person’s face and chest were slashed with a knife. With the suspect free on the street until his sentencing hearing in four months, she’s concerned for their safety.

“It’s not like he just broke in and stole things ... It was really malicious.”

Burnaby RCMP spokesperson Corp. Ted De Jager said the case is still being actively investigated and “that’s not uncommon at all to see an investigation last that long.”

Gathering evidence to make a charge stick takes time.

“Unfortunately, I think a lot of the public have a CSI mentality—it gets solved in 45 minutes plus commercials,” De Jager said of the popular TV show. “We don’t have a lab in our basement unlike Las Vegas apparently does so [forensic evidence] takes a long time to process and that can take months in a priority.”

De Jager stressed that wasn’t necessarily what happened with Irwin’s case.

Still, “just because we have a name doesn’t mean we can just go out and arrest that person without any evidence to back that up.”