Break in East Kensington binary bandit case

East Kensington/Fishtown (WTXF) - One of Philadelphia's most bizarre crime sprees in recent memory just got a little more weird.

"Shock. Disbelief" said Sean Mundy of East Kensington. Mundy and his wife Meghan Haley were dumfounded when they saw a woman on surveillance video steal their "zero" address number from their front porch on the 2200 block of Amber Street back in September. And they were not alone. Over the past 2 months, dozens of their neighbors have also been victims of the strange crimes. The thieves are only concerned with swiping metal decorative zeros and ones from front porches. Then this morning came the really weird part.

"I couldn't believe it. I thought he was playing a joke on me" said Haley.

Mundy left for work Tuesday morning to find a white plastic bag on his front door step. Guess what was inside?

"I just stared up in the air and looked at Meghan and said "it's all the ones and zeros" said Mundy. A bag full of stolen numbers. The so-called "Binary Bandit" struck again. But this time returning all the numbers to the Amber Street home. The couple believes the bag was returned to them because they appeared in media accounts of the original theft.

Haley put on rubber gloves, took pictures of the numbers and then called Philadelphia Police who retrieved the stolen items for their investigation.

"I just want to find out what's happening to him and hold someone accountable for it. Because they vandalized 83 homes in the neighborhood so it's not just one person doing it" said Mundy.

The couple went back to the video and there he was. A man wearing a hooded sweatshirt calmly walks up to the door step, places the bag down and walks away. Now the neighborhood is left guessing?

"Why? Like why would someone do that? I kind of thought it was art students" said one nearby resident.

"Perhaps it was an art project that got weird social commentary on all these new people moving into the neighborhood" said another.

Mundy and Haley have a fresh new zero on their home to replace the stolen one. But they still have questions of their own.

Haley added "I wonder if they had some remorse. Or it's a Christmas miracle. We don't know why they were stolen to begin with so we don't know why they are returned. So we have more questions than answers at this point"

Philadelphia Police detectives with the 26th District are now processing all the newly discovered evidence. They have no suspects but believe it may be a group of people involved.