A 29-year-old man from Brandon is facing a handful of charges after a series of thefts early Friday morning in a Manitoba village that started when the suspect's vehicle got stuck in snow.

Just after 2:30 a.m. Friday morning, Killarney RCMP were called to a home in Cartwright, Man. The village of roughly 300 people is about 181 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg.

The homeowner told police he'd seen a suspicious man walking around his home with a shovel, and a vehicle stuck in the snow outside. The homeowner went outside to help the man get unstuck, but when he mentioned he'd called police the man ran away, leaving his vehicle behind.

"It was just kind of, I guess you could say bad luck on his part. He got stuck trying to maybe check out a place or a vehicle," said Sgt. Paul Manaigre, a spokesperson for the RCMP.

"And it kind of, like I say, was the first piece of the puzzle for the officers to start putting together."

Officers ran the plate and learned the man associated the vehicle was known to police, and was on a court-imposed curfew at the time, Manaigre said. When police couldn't find the man at his house, they started searching the area.

A couple hours later, just after 4:30 a.m., police were patrolling the community and saw another suspicious vehicle, which was later reported stolen. The man inside jumped out and ran away on foot, and then stole another vehicle and drove away, police said

Later that morning, police received a complaint of a business being broken into, where the suspect had pried his way into the building and made off with an undisclosed amount of cash.

"It finally, I guess, came to a head in the morning, approximately, I believe, 8:30, when calls were coming in that there was a suspicious person walking on Highway 5," Manaigre said.

"They were able to arrest him and in turn determine that this gentleman was responsible for the numerous thefts throughout the night."

The man has been remanded into custody and faces numerous charges, Manaigre said. They have not been proven in court.

Community callers important

In total, Manaigre said three vehicles were stolen and one business was broken into. Other vehicles were also broken into and rifled through, he added.

He said community callers helped police locate the suspect in a timely manner.

"The big thing is, people were calling in. Obviously, if they were a victim of crime, they were calling it in right away. But they were quick at it, so the officers were able to kind of follow the trails and it led to us finding him," he said.

"If they had waited two, three days to report everything that happened, he would've been long gone and we'd probably still be working on these cases right now."