The bespectacled man in the collared shirt and red tie had the face of an accountant, and police who dubbed him the "preppy burglar" surmised he dressed like a door-to-door salesman to help him break into homes unnoticed.
A video from a surveillance camera that spread across the Internet captured the sandy-haired man holding what appeared to be an official piece of paper and knocking on the front door of a rural Clarksville home. Then it showed him emerging, wearing gloves and carrying computer equipment.
But 30-year-old Jeremy Matthew Hall was neither "preppy" nor did he dress up as part of an elaborate ruse to blend into neighborhoods and break into houses, according to his lawyer, who said his client was addicted to prescription drugs and had reached the breaking point when he committed his crimes.
Hall pleaded guilty last week to breaking into two houses in Howard and Montgomery counties and was sentenced to serve 18 months in jail. Silent on the video that captured his crime, he spoke up in court, giving an impassioned speech detailing his dependence on painkillers and the anguish it had caused his family.
Hall also described to a Montgomery County judge how he had paid back the two victims for the items he had stolen. He managed to retrieve two guitars he took from the house in Spencerville — a Fender Stratocaster worth $15,000 and a Gibson Les Paul worth $7,000 — and hand them back to the owner, complete with a handshake.
"I feel that the criminal law in this case was used by the lawyers to do substantial good," said Thomas L. Heeney, Hall's lawyer.
Heeney said the owner of the guitars had bought them when he was 11 years old, using money saved from his newspaper delivery job. The lawyer conceded that his client had resold the guitars for "a pittance of their actual value" and that they "were priceless to the victim."
The homeowners could not be reached Friday, and officials at the Montgomery County state's attorney's office did not return messages seeking comment. Hall had been charged with burglary counts in both break-ins; the cases were consolidated in Montgomery County.
On Jan. 7, Hall pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree burglary and one count of theft. Circuit Judge Eric M. Johnson sentenced him to five years in prison, with three years and six months suspended.
The video captured Hall breaking into a Howard County house on Browns Bridge Road the morning of Sept. 14. He's seen standing on the porch, ringing the doorbell and knocking on the storm door. He then peers through one of three small windows.
Police said he walked to the back of the house and forced his way inside. He is next seen emerging from the front door wearing black leather gloves and holding what appears to be a shredder or a computer printer.
The owner of the house, David Irick, said at the time that it appeared the suspect wanted to look like someone selling items door-to-door or taking a survey.
But Heeney said his client dressed the way he did because he had just come from work. "Nothing more, nothing less," the attorney said. He added that Hall took exception to the police description of him as "preppy."
"His thinking was that it was an erroneous characterization of him," Heeney said. The attorney declined to say how Hall had been employed.
In a letter to the judge and read in court during his plea, Hall described his nine-year addiction to OxyContin and Percocet and how he did "what was necessary to purchase the drugs and hide the use from my family and friends."
He said in the letter that he sank to his lowest level between March and September of last year, the time during which the burglaries occurred, and that the months of sobriety after his arrest were among the most difficult of his life.
During treatment, Hall said: "I had to face a lot of horrible things that I had done under the influence of my addiction. I am still disgusted by the crimes I committed, and will be for the rest of my life. … I am fully aware that I not only took property from innocent people but I took away their 'peace of mind' and sense of security."
He said apologizing face-to-face to one of the victims was difficult but therapeutic. "I have brought shame to my family, my community and to myself," Hall told the court.