A Santa Fe woman helped police catch a man who burglarized her neighbor's house Wednesday afternoon by following him in her car and reporting his movements to police via phone until he was caught.

As a result, police arrested 24-year-old Juan Frank Nieto, whom, they say, was recently paroled from prison and was linked to several other burglaries in the neighborhood south of St. Michael's Drive.

The incident occurred around 4 p.m. Wednesday in the 1900 block of Thomas Avenue.

"The lady saw our suspect leave her neighbor's home carrying a backpack, and she called us and was giving us real prime information as to his whereabouts and was following him," said Santa Fe Police Department Lt. Louis Carlos. "They took him into custody on St. Michael's Drive. When he saw the officer, he tried to run across the street, but traffic was too heavy."

The 50-year-old woman who helped track Nieto spoke to a reporter Thursday on the condition that her identity be kept confidential.

But Daniel Gutierrez, 52, a family friend, said he first spotted the man in the yard of the woman's neighbor across the street.

Gutierrez said Thursday he saw the man coming out of the neighbor's gate and thought it odd because he knew two women lived there and they mostly have female visitors. When he saw an open window at the house Nieto had just exited, he thought that the man might have just robbed the home.

He told the woman, who got in her car with her nephew, dialed 911 and followed the man down the street while on the phone with police dispatchers. Police apprehended him a few blocks away.

The woman said she wasn't scared at the time — more like "hyper" because the dispatcher and her nephew were both talking to her at once.

"I just figured that if it happened to me. I would want my neighbors to do [the same thing] too," she said.

The woman said she has lived in her home since 1973, and it has never been burglarized.

"It's wonderful, unbelievable the kind of concern and watchful kindness that our neighbors give us," said Alice Davis, the 71-year-old retired librarian and psychotherapist whose home was robbed.

Davis said she's lived in the neighborhood for 12 years and was robbed once before in 2001.

Davis said the thief took an unspecified amount of cash from her home, including some bills and some change.

"He took things that weren't identifiable," she said.

Davis said she was at the grocery store at the time of the break-in and happened to have her dog, who "looks and sounds like a German shepherd," with her.

She said the home she shares with her partner was "a little messed up," with drawers pulled out and things thrown on the floor, when she arrived home.

Carlos said police had recovered some coins from Nieto. But Davis said she hadn't heard from police or gotten her property back as of Thursday afternoon. The incident occurred around 4 p.m. Wednesday in the 1900 block of Thomas Avenue.

According to police reports filed Wednesday, Nieto — who has tattoos on his face, neck and skull — confessed to robbing Davis' home and stealing a laptop from a home on Navajo Drive earlier in the day.

According to online court records, Nieto pleaded guilty to four counts of home burglary and four counts of larceny in 2007.

Gutierrez said Nieto's casual manner of walking — on streets instead of through fields — and the fact that he was smiling, made him think that perhaps Nieto wanted to be re-arrested "because he had nowhere to go."

Contact Phaedra Haywood at 986-3068 or phaywood@sfnewmexican.com.