Burglar caught on patio with whiskey after tricking elderly woman into making him breakfast

BROWNS POINT, Wash. — A man ended his burglary spree in Browns Point by allegedly persuading an elderly woman to make him breakfast while he lounged on her patio with a bottle of whiskey and a cigarette.

That’s where Pierce County sheriff’s deputies found him about 9:30 a.m. Friday, three hours or so after the first of at least five residents called 911 to report a break-in.

It started at 6 a.m. when a dog started barking at a home on Granville Avenue, alerting its owner that two doors and a window had been opened by an intruder.

Beneath the window was a distinctive bootprint that would later tie the 20-year-old suspect to the burglary spree in Northeast Tacoma.

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By 8:20 a.m., the man startled a woman on Hyada Boulevard Northeast when she found him in her basement. He claimed he was looking for a lost dog; she called 911.

A half-hour later, a woman reported that a suspicious man was jumping over fences on Ton A Wan Da Avenue and appeared to be breaking into a neighbor’s house.

Within just a few minutes, another 911 call was made by a woman who noticed the man knocking on doors and was suspicious but left for work. Her home alarm went off almost immediately, and when she returned home, someone had rifled through her house.

Deputies arrived and were searching the woods near Browns Point Playfield when a man on Wana Wana Place told them his wife was making breakfast for a stranger who lounging on their patio in a lawn chair.

“The homeowner believes the suspect had tricked his wife into believing that they were friends and he needed her help” looking for a lost dog, the department said on its Facebook page.

The deputies went to the patio and the suspect initiated a short foot pursuit that went through the home, out the front door, over several fences in backyards and onto the playfield.

“The suspect became winded, fell to his knees in the bushes and was ordered at gunpoint to not move,” the department said.

He was booked into jail on suspicion of residential burglary, minor in possession of alcohol and resisting arrest. He also had two warrants for escaping community custody after a robbery conviction and being a minor with alcohol.

Deputies said the alleged burglar was wearing boots that matched the footprint from the first break-in and had several stolen items on him, including driver’s licenses and jewelry.

Click here to read the story on Tacoma News Tribune.

Tacoma News Tribune