In late April inside Truman Jewelers in downtown Albany, a man walked around the store. But if you kept an eye on him, you would've seen him reach behind the counter and begin to grab merchandise.

In total, the suspect made off with about $4,000 worth of jewelry. But what he doesn’t know is that he’s been tagged with a mist, which later helped police connect him to the crime after his arrest.

“For me, really positive for the client and my staff that all we have to do is activate the system and let the police do their job,” said Paul Crabbe, owner of Truman Jewelers.

The store is the first in the Northeast to utilize this forensic marking technology, created by SelectaDNA, when it was installed January 2020. Ruzzo, a distributor of this product, said this gives prosecutors another tool.

“It allows prosecutors to be able to add additional evidence to their prosecutorial process,” Ruzzo said.

He won’t say where the technology deploys the mist from due to security, but showed how invisible spray will work in this case or when activated remotely. Ruzzo said this was intended to help deter criminals.

“In the middle of the evening, the alarm system is alarmed, they’re automatically set up so if someone were to come in, they are going to go through one of those corridors,” Ruzzo said.

Crabbe said this offers peace of mind while also making sure if a crime is committed, there’s good chance for closure.

“Sometimes you don’t have that in situations so it worked out well,” Crabbe said.