Holloman, who completed training for the analyst specialty in April, delved into a string of recent burglaries targeting RV companies. On May 29, he posted a notice for patrol division supervisors:

"There is the potential that one of them will be hit again tonight between the times of 2218 hrs (10:18 p.m.) and 0342 hrs (3:42 a.m.). The targeted area is between C.R. 1 and C.R. 7 and from C.R. 24 to just north of Bristol St."

Sure enough, county police interrupted a burglary less than 12 hours after Holloman's notice.

Police responded to a Forest River facility in the 29000 block of Old U.S. 33 shortly after midnight May 30. That led to the arrest of a 27-year-old Elkhart man on a preliminary C felony charge of burglary, and police are investigating whether the man is connected to any of the other incidents.

"Holloman's information for officers working the shift gave them important details to increase coverage in specific areas," Trevor Wendzonka, public information supervisor at the Elkhart County Sheriff's Department, said in a press release following the arrest.

Holloman said it all begins with good case reports from patrolmen.

Holloman reviews every case report filed in the sheriff's department, focusing mostly on property crimes -- including burglaries, thefts and car break-ins -- and some people crimes, such as robberies. The more details patrolmen provide, Holloman said, the more efficiently and accurately he can identify a pattern.

Nearly every detail is crucial: dates, times, locations, victims' actions, suspects' methods, property information and more.

Holloman keeps track of the data and maps what he believes could be a series of crimes involving the same people. Based on that data, he'll determine the time and geographic parameters in which the next hit in the series of crimes will likely occur.

Then he gives the information to the patrol supervisors, who decide how they might prepare for an incident. In the Forest River case, the patrolmen had positioned themselves to have more officers than usual in the area Holloman specified.

That's exactly the kind of preparation Undersheriff Julie Dijkstra hoped adding the crime analysis specialty would produce.

Dijkstra, who learned about the crime analysis specialty at an accreditation class earlier this year, called the Forest River arrest "a good start."

The goal, she said, is interrupting more crimes rather than having to solve them after the incident.

And since the May 30 incident at Forest River, Dijkstra said, skeptics of crime voodoo have joked with Holloman, saying, "You're gonna make believers of us yet."