Call it male bonding.

Maybe even mentoring.

An Akron man and his son have been charged with breaking into secluded homes across four counties outside Philadelphia — all to feed their raging heroin habits, police said.

Their take: $500,000 in valuables.

John D. Cartlidge Sr., 41, is accused of breaking into 72 homes in Chester, Delaware, Bucks and Montgomery counties from September through early January, said state police Capt. David Young.

In five of the heists, police said, he recruited his son — John D. Cartlidge Jr., 21, of the Philadelphia suburb Clifton Heights.

"It was a little bonding," Young said. "A real mentoring system."

Their M.O. was always the same, police said.

The men would target houses that bordered wooded areas between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. on weekdays, when residents were at work.

They'd carry two-way radios. They'd seek out rural homes where nobody was home. One of the guys would knock on the front door while the other would wait in the car.

"If nobody answered, they'd kick the door in or look for an easier way in," said Young.

Once inside, the burglar would grab pillow cases and stuff them full of valuables — "They'd get anything they could find: cameras, jewelry, guns, sports memorabilia," said Young.

They would hawk them at pawn shops in Philadelphia for drug money, or simply trade goods with drug dealers for heroin, he said.

If somebody happened to answer the door, they'd pretend to be hunters seeking permission to access the property owner's land.

On most of the break-ins, police said, Cartlidge worked with another man, considered a person of interest in the case. They did as many as three houses in a day.

Police arrested the father-son duo in January but didn't charge the pair until Thursday. The senior Cartlidge is in prison in lieu of $100,000 bail. The younger Cartlidge is in prison in lieu of $25,000 bail.

After he was arrested, Cartlidge Sr. took officers around and pointed out the houses they had targeted, the Philadelphia Daily News reported. He said he remembered one house because he knew when he was robbing it that it was the home of a former state trooper.

At another, he said, the third man in the case was startled by a homeowner — an 89-year-old woman. The accomplice ran from the home and fell on his face in the driveway.


Staff writer Tom Murse can be reached at tmurse@LNPnews.com or 481-6021.