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Police: Man claimed to be Jack Bauer from '24' in home break-in

A North Seattle couple found a mess in their apartment and police say their suspect believed he was Jack Bauer from the television show "24" when he broke in.

SEATTLE — David Stolte, 30, was arrested and charged with residential burglary.

Derek Doerschel and his fiancee Danielle Green came home last Sunday to their door ajar.

Doerschel told KIRO 7 he found screens off their windows, kitty litter in the sink, food strewn all over the kitchen, a frozen pie in the oven, and a frozen crab in the closet.

"The crab from the freezer was just sitting right here on the blanket on the bike," he said.

Clothes were in the bathtub. Doerschel's credit cards had been removed from his wallet and were stuffed in a chocolate muffin.

The peephole in their front door had somehow been removed and was missing.

Doerschel said his fiancee was shaken up.

"She was scared," he said. "She was getting a little emotional."

Doerschel called police and spotted a man crouched in the alley beside the apartment with his hands on his head.

He said the man threw something at him.

"At first I thought it was a shell casing to a gun or a bullet," Doerschel said.

It was the peephole to the apartment.

When police arrived, they arrested Stolte as he tried to jump the railing on the fourth floor of the same building, where he often stays with his mother.

Police said he implied he'd taken LSD.

Court documents obtained by KIRO 7 state that Stolte has no known criminal convictions but that police contacted him several times over the past few years for running around naked, climbing on roofs at Seattle Center naked, and even smashing a bus window in Oregon and lying in the middle of the road attempting to get run over.

"It's progressively getting worse," Stolte's mother, Ria Quinton said.

She said she was "shocked and horrified" by the description of her son's behavior on Sunday. Quinton said he's on medication for bipolar I disorder.

Quinton says she's tried everything, including taking him to the emergency room because of his behavior and trying to get him admission to Evergreen Health. She said her son is on the waiting list for a therapist.

KIRO 7 asked if he's a danger. She said he's only a danger to himself.

"I know he would never hurt anyone else," Quinton said. "He is capable of damaging property."

Quinton said she hopes a judge will do what she can't: order that he spend time in a psychiatric hospital.