BUTLER TWP — A would-be burglar might have inadvertently fingered himself as a suspect.

Township police Saturday arrested 25-year-old Donald W. Myers for the three-week-old attempted break-in of a Meridian home.

A key clue in the case turned out to be a bottle of Gatorade that Myers had brought with him to the alleged crime scene about 2:30 a.m. July 18.

But when a burglar alarm scared him off, the defendant allegedly left the bottle behind.

And that’s not all he left behind, according to court documents. Fingerprints on the bottle led investigators to him.

Myers is in the Butler County Prison on $10,000 bail. He is charged with attempted burglary and trespass.

Police said Ralph Mariotti was in the kitchen of his Pinecrest Court home when the alarm system there went off. He opened the door and spotted a man running from his garage.

Mariotti and officers inspected the garage and found the Gatorade bottle on the floor. Mariotti said the bottle was not his, and suspected it belonged to the crook.

Investigators had the bottle sent to the state police crime lab in Westmoreland County for fingerprint and DNA analysis.

On Friday, police received the examination report. Latent prints on the bottle matched those of Myers, documents said.

The defendant’s fingerprints were in the FBI’s computer database because of several prior arrests.

His criminal history, court records showed, includes convictions for two residential burglaries in Meridian in the winter of 2005.

Coincidentally, Myers in those crimes left behind footprints in the snow. Police said the tread design on Myers’ sneakers matched the footprints.