Deputies: Suspect found hiding in air vent in Lacey home

A suspect wanted for trafficking stolen property was taken into custody Thursday morning after deputies found him hiding in an air vent at a Lacey home.

MyNorthwest.com reported that deputies were investigating a case when they encountered two individuals outside the home.

"They were being pretty verbal with us and wouldn’t provide us with information for who they were,” Thurston County Deputy Mitch King told MyNorthwest.com. “I was able to find their booking photos through our jail system and determined that both of them had felony warrants.”

One of the two then ran inside the home.

After obtaining a search warrant, deputies went inside and searched each room.

King opened a door to a small area and found a heating unit inside.

“Right away, I saw a chunk of flesh where his body had blown open the duct work, and I could see the stripes where his Calvin Klein underwear was hanging out,” he said. “So I called him by his name and asked if he was OK. It took him a while, and all he said was, ‘Hey bro, I can’t breathe.’”

The Thurston County Sheriff's Office shared photos of getting the suspect out of the vent.

“If we hadn’t have found him, he probably would have gotten stuck in there, ” King said, noting that the two people who helped him into the vent had left the residence. “If we hadn’t have found him in there, there’s a good chance he would have had a hard time breathing or would have expired in that vent.”

The man was later taken into custody.

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