The St. Tammany Sheriff’s Office said they have solved 50 car burglaries in the Slidell area, and identified three Mississippi men as the alleged thieves thanks to an apple juice bottle left at the scene of one of the burglaries.

For the past several weeks, Sheriff’s investigators have been trying to find the perpetrators of the car burglaries. The thieves would target unlocked cars and take whatever loose items they could fine, said STPSO spokesman, Capt. George Bonnett. They were stealing GPS devices, cell phones, computers and loose cash, Bonnett said.

But detectives got a break last week when they found a bottle of apple juice on the ground next to one of the burglarized cars. The owner of the car said it was not hers, because she did not drink apple juice. Bonnett said the detectives contacted the distributor of the juice, who told them that the brand was only sold in a few stores in east St. Tammany Parish. Detectives discovered one of the stores just happened to be near the scene of the crime. The investigators looked at the store’s video surveillance system, and saw three men, one of whom bought the apple juice.

Thinking the men might have committed the same crimes in surrounding parishes and counties, detectives learned that the men on the surveillance tape were sitting in the Pearl River County Jail in Mississippi on other charges. The men are identified as Ronal Cuevas, 17, of Carriere, Miss., Jessie Mills, 19, and Devin Mitchell, both of Picayune, Miss. Deputies went to Poplarville, Miss., Monday night to talk to the suspects, and Bonnett said they identified themselves on the video tape and admitted they had burglarized the cars.

Bonnett said most of the stolen property has been recovered and returned to the rightful owners. Anyone who thinks they might have been one of the victims in the string of car burglaries, can call Detective Matt Lewis at 726-7846 or Detective Ray Smith at 726-7829 to see if they can identify any of their stolen property.

The three men will be sitting in the Pearl River County Jail for a while. According to Chief of Detectives Donnie Saucier with the Pearl River County Sheriff’s Office, the three suspects have been charged with two counts of residential burglary and 20 counts of car burglary. Saucier said investigators are trying to link the three men with about 43 other car burglaries in the county.

Bonnett said it is not known when the three men will be brought back to St. Tammany.