Crime Beat: State of Illusion

U-M burglary report turns out to be false

University of Michigan Police say a burglary reported Saturday evening at the Alice Lloyd residence hall wasn’t a burglary after all.

Diane Brown, a campus police spokeswoman, said that police learned through additional interviews that two men seen on the roof of the residence hall actually live there.

In a campus-wide crime bulletin, police said a witness saw two men on the roof at about 8:10 p.m. Saturday and called to them as they tried to get into a window. The witness told police the men crawled through another window after two other men opened it for them. Nothing was reported missing.

But Brown said at least two of the men who claimed to be victims of the burglary live in the dorm and later admitted they were scared when the witness yelled at them. Police may forward the case to prosecutors to review for charges of filing a false police report.

A crime alert issued early Sunday was canceled.

Ypsilanti police said a mysterious marble gravestone discovered in the 200 block of East Michigan Avenue earlier this month turned out not to be real.

The gravestone, with the name John King, who was supposedly born Nov. 28, 1936, and died Nov. 5, 1997, turned out to be a prop that had been used in a "haunted trailer" attraction sponsored by a Jaycees group. Police had been checking local cemeteries to find where the gravestone belonged.

The fake gravestone was returned to the Jaycees.