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Police have “persons of interest” in razor blade playground case, investigation ongoing

Investigators in East Moline say they are making slow, but steady progress in catching the culprit or culprits who glued razor blades to playground equipment.

Investigators in East Moline say they are making slow, but steady progress in catching the culprit or culprits who glued razor blades to playground equipment last month, cutting the hand of a 2-year-old boy.

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"We have some suspects of interest that we're continuing to follow up on and interview," said Lt. Darren Gault, who heads investigations for East Moline Police.

Right now, the 12 razor blades are in the hands of the Illinois State Crime Lab for testing, but police are trying to verify their suspects using store surveillance video and transaction records.

Line by line. Frame by frame.

"Our detectives have gone to numerous hardware stores and supply stores to follow up on the evidence we collected at the park. The evidence was a particular type of razor blade.  They're less common than the razor blade that probably everybody has in their utility knife, so that helped us narrow our search," Lt. Gault said.

Now, Detective Tony Frankowski is reviewing sales records provided by the stores for those type of blades and adhesive like Super Glue, then matching the date and time purchased to store video. Trying to see if their persons of interest are on tape.

Meanwhile, Gault and company are still encouraging tips from the public.

"We got a lot of Crime Stoppers tips and leads to go on. But, we do need the public's help. We are very confident that there are more people out there that know information that would be valuable to our investigation," Lt. Gault said. "The time is now."

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to contact Capt. Reynolds at (309) 752-1552 or Crime Stoppers of the Quad Cities at (309) 762-9500.

 

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