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Crown prosecutor Jess Patterson described the break-ins on Mills Road in Sidney, Kremlin Avenue, Broadmead Avenue, Lauder Road, Monarch Place and Tulip Avenue in Saanich, Moss Street in Victoria and Monterey Avenue and Dunlevy Street in Oak Bay.

In most of the break-ins, Hanson broke a rear window to get in, leaving blood on the floor, the glass or the windowsills.

In almost all the break-ins, no one was home. In one case, the homeowner had moved to a care home. In another, the resident had died.

The most troubling break-in was on July 27 at a home on Moss Street. At 1:16 a.m., a woman was awakened by the sound of someone knocking on the front door, Patterson said.

“She went to have a look, but there were no lights on and she couldn’t see anyone. She went back to bed. She heard another noise and returned to the living room and saw a man’s arm reaching through a small broken window on her front door. She approached the door and smacked the arm that was coming through,” Patterson said.

Hanson fled.

He ransacked the homes, leaving laptops and TV sets behind and stealing small items such as jewelry, Patterson said.

At the house on Dunlevy, Hanson stole the wedding bands of the homeowner’s parents and two watches.

Hanson came to the attention of police as a break-in suspect, but how that happened wasn’t revealed at the hearing.

The spree ended on Sept. 15, 2015, when Victoria police put a tracking device on his car and placed him under surveillance. They saw Hanson going back and forth between a house on Lauder Road and a house on Monarch Place.