As a hunter, Bret Hildebrand is used to being the predator, but after his house was burgled in January, he sensed he was being preyed upon. “I thought, well, they might be a creature of habit, so I stuck trail cams up and, sure enough, as they did the first time, they did again,” Hildebrand said.

On Jan. 16, someone broke into Hildebrand's home in Fenelton, according to a police complaint. Hildebrand told state troopers that somebody had opened the back-door window pane, allowing them to unlock the nearby door and take $200 worth of change.

Afterward, Hildebrand arranged to have home security installed, but in the interim he decided to booby trap his home. He installed motion-detector trail cameras that he uses for hunting and placed one of the cameras in the area which the burglar originally entered.

“It's like patterning an animal. Like you're hunting,” Hildebrand said. “It was just a precautionary measure. I figured that's where he'd be if he came back.”

And Feb. 6, Hildebrand came home and found that someone had once again broken into his home using the same method.

Reviewing the trail camera photographs, Hildebrand saw that a man, whom police later identified as Jason Michael Nimal, 43, of Dayton, Pa., entered the house around noon and left with an item. Police were able to identify the man by showing the photograph to officials in Armstrong County. There, a probation officer recognized the suspect.

The Armstrong officer noted that Nimal had been in the Armstrong County courthouse earlier that day wearing the same clothes that he's seen wearing in Hildebrand's trail photographs.

“People need to just use these simple techniques to protect themselves,” Hildebrand said. “I just strategically placed (the cameras) and it worked well. There's only so many corridors to get in. They work great.”

He noted that the security system will still be installed.

Nimal was charged with two counts of burglary, criminal trespassing and theft. A warrant has been issued for his arrest.