TEXAS COMPUTER STOLEN FROM UNIVERSITY OF AUSTIN Daily Illini | Texas-Austin faculty members help stop biology burglarPublished Wednesday, March 3, 2004

(U-WIRE) AUSTIN, Texas — A heroic effort by faculty members of the University of Texas at Austin biology department to catch a suspicious character on campus Wednesday led to the arrest of a man with a criminal history.

Ronald Versfelt was arrested on campus Wednesday morning for burglary. Versfelt, who is neither employed by nor attending U. Texas, has a criminal history that includes two prior burglary convictions, according to a UTPD arrest warrant.

Randy Linder, associate professor of integrative biology, noticed Versfelt as he was riding his bike past the J.T. Patterson Laboratories Building at 24th and Speedway on his way to jury duty. On Wednesday, Linder saw a man walking out of the building with a Macintosh G4 computer tower and a 17-inch flat-screen monitor. The computer was wrapped in a garbage bag and cords hung out.

"I had heard how thievery had been going on for over a year in the building, so I found this to be a little suspicious," Linder said.

Linder said he asked Versfelt what he was doing, and he mumbled a barely intelligible response indicating he was picking up the computer to repair it.

The professor asked the man to come back into the building, where he escorted him to the office of Amy Sauceda, an administrative assistant. Sauceda questioned Versfelt about why he had the computer. When he could not explain himself, Sauceda said she became suspicious.

"He said that he needed to repair a broken keyboard," said Sauceda. "But I didn't understand why he needed the whole computer to do that."