Three Crime Watch reader reports tonight:

MAILBOX PROWLERS: Once again, WSB Forums member MyPatience1978 in Highland Park has caught mailbox prowlers on camera. These two came by just before midnight last night. As discussed there – if your postal mail still arrives and goes via an unlocked box on the street, you might reconsider. And if you recognize these two, speak up.

(added) GARAGE BREAK-IN: Michael reports, “We had our garage broken into last night and had miscellaneous items stolen from the garage and one of our cars that they broke into. They were able to get into one of the cars and destroyed the interior in their attempt to probably steal the car. We are in North Admiral on 45th and SW Seattle. Must have happened overnight.”

(back to original report) STOLEN CAR: Andrea in White Center is asking people all around the area to be on the lookout for her car – “stolen last night from (10700 block) 14th Ave SW. 1993 Black Honda Civic. License starts with ACE. Please call 206-307-8439.” And 911.

MYSTERY CAR: This turned up on 41st between Fauntleroy and Graham, and a neighbor wondered if it’s a stolen car someone’s looking for:

Description:

Black Cadillac Northstar DTS
License 534-YUA
4-door sedan
Broken front passenger window (covered in plastic)
3 flat tires
Appeared Sunday between 1:30 pm and 4:00 pm

We didn’t find it in @getyourcarback but that could mean many things – from “not stolen” to stolen more than a few days ago, stolen outside the city, plate switched, owner doesn’t know it’s gone yet … It’s been reported to police, so contact them if you know whose it is.

WEST SEATTLE CRIME PREVENTION COUNCIL: Next meeting is January 21st, one week from tomorrow, and Southwest Precinct Operations Lt. Pierre Davis will be there with an update on local trends as well as to listen to neighborhood concerns, in addition to special guest Ann Graves from Seattle Animal Shelter to talk about a variety of issues, as detailed in the WSCPC preview. The meeting’s at 7 pm Tuesday, Jan. 21st, in the precinct meeting room (Delridge/Webster).

In West Seattle Crime Watch tonight – we start with two reader reports. First, from Nerissa:

Around 12:15, my house was broken into. We are on the corner of 47th and Andover. [map] My roommate was downstairs watching the game and the people or person must have only been in for a minute or two. They came in through the back door which *was* a half-glass French door with what looks like a crowbar. They took laptops, iPods, iPod chargers, and some jewelry. They may have left out the front door and were quiet and quick. We didn’t notice until I got home since my roommate assumed it was me walking around upstairs.

We checked the SPD map; the burglary rate is back down, eight mapped in the past week in West Seattle.

From Joleen in Westwood:

My bicycle was stolen within the past week. It’s a white women’s bike, 18-speed I think. It was locked to the beam in my carport. The bike lock was cut, likely with bolt cutters. My back gate was left open as well…

If you’re wondering what brought police to West Seattle Thriftway (WSB sponsor) this afternoon:

(Photo added 8:57 pm, courtesy Brian Allen)
After a reader tip, we went to check, and learned on scene that it was another case of liquor shoplifting, which has plagued so many stores since privatization. One suspect was taken into custody.

Finally – we got a note from neighbors at 40th/Findlay (map) who wondered if anyone else has been hit by tree vandalism/theft. Three “young trees” were cut down in a planting strip and front yard – not lost to stormy weather, we’re told; saw marks were visible on the stumps. We haven’t heard of any trees targeted since the holidays, in a couple cases that appeared to be thieves seeking free Christmas trees (which they could have instead gotten from at least two local lots that wound up giving away remainders).

Following up on our report from last weekend that the trial was about to begin for Lovett Chambers, charged with shooting and killing Travis Hood in Morgan Junction two years ago: The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office says pre-trial motions continued throughout this week and will continue next week, so the trial is not expected to get to opening statements until week after next. Those motions decide matters large and small, from what evidence will and won’t be admitted to how often the defendant can get a haircut during the trial (answer: weekly). Both sides have laid out their cases in trial briefs as well as motions, hundreds and hundreds of pages worth – some documents so big, we can’t get them to download through the online system. We’ve reported before that Chambers’ lawyers are expected to focus on self-defense as well as post-traumatic stress disorder; one recent document contends that the latter is due to what he went through in prison when he was much younger. According to court documents, his record has been clean for more than 30 years. Chambers is on trial for second-degree murder, reduced last summer from the original first-degree charge.

Two West Seattle Crime Watch reader reports tonight – first, from Patrice:

Thought you might like to know that my catalytic converter, muffler, tailpipe were all stolen right off of my car sometime Monday night.

Turns out I have a wanted item. I drive a ’97 Toyota 4-Runner and the Cat converter is full of precious metals. I looked up info on a 4-runner blog and learned that some cities get rashes of these thefts and it only takes about 30 seconds to cut it off. Which is what they did to my car. Cut it all clean off.

I live in the Admiral District on Walnut. [map] The car was parked in the street. Other folks may want to know so they can try preventive measures. I’m just sick about it.

And from Lori:

Monday early a.m. (between 3:30 and 5) and early evening two incidents of a person with a flashlight outside houses in the 50th and Alaska [map] neighborhood. Possible mailbox thefts. Police have been notified.

ORIGINAL REPORT, 2:04 AM: This note came in late Monday night. Though it corresponds to a “lewd conduct” call showing in the SPD log, we won’t be able to follow up with police for further details until later this morning, so we are passing the info along as-is for now, since families in the area might want to alert their kids:

My daughter attends Denny International Middle School. (Monday) she was on her way to meet me. She was walking up Kenyon toward 35th and when she got to 30th [map] a man in a 4-door silver or grayish sedan tried to get her attention. When she looked over the man was naked from the waist down and masturbating. I arrived literally a minute later. We called 911. He wasn’t apprehended. Just wanted to share this information with my community.

Thanks,
Anonymous Concerned Mother

No further description in the note – but again, we will follow up with police later this morning and publish an update with anything more we find out.

9:28 AM: Here’s what else we have found out – from ACM, it happened at about 2:37 pm. From the police report – They got the call at 2:40 pm and the first unit arrived in the area at 2:55 pm, at which point the vehicle was nowhere in sight; it apparently left shortly after the girl arrived in the area, as she is reported as having heard its engine start up. The car is described in the police report as “small, medium-sized four-door car with round headlights, round door mirrors, tinted front windows, and possibly no front grille.” The passenger door was open and the man was leaning back/reclining, so his upper body was not in view, according to the report, which says he tried to get the girl’s attention by calling out, “Pssst, pssst.”

11:38 AM: We have just published a separate followup including a letter to families from the Denny/Sealth principals.

Almost two years after 35-year-old Travis Hood (left) was shot and killed outside Morgan Junction Park, his accused killer, 69-year-old Lovett Chambers (right), is about to go on trial. Tomorrow (Monday, January 6th) is the official start date, though opening statements might not happen for more than a week. According to the official assignment made this past Friday, King County Superior Court Judge Theresa Doyle will preside over the trial, starting Monday morning with motions.

As reported here last August, the charge against Chambers has been reduced to second-degree murder; the original charge filed days after the shooting was first-degree murder. We have been following the case as it proceeded through the system for these many months. Court documents say Chambers contends he acted in self-defense, saying that Hood and his friend, who had been at the nearby Feedback Lounge at the same time he was, were making racial slurs, and that Hood tried to get into his car. Chambers was arrested at his Gatewood home one hour after the shooting; police were given his name quickly because he was a regular at the bar.

Chambers’ case also is described in numerous documents as pursuing a “post-traumatic stress disorder” defense. Some of the most recent court filings involve arguments over whether statements that Chambers made to police the night of the shooting can be admitted as evidence. The court calendar has set aside a month for the trial. Prosecuting Attorney’s Office spokesperson Dan Donohoe tells WSB that jury selection is expected to begin after a few days of motion hearings, and an estimated two weeks of testimony will follow that.

Four West Seattle Crime Watch reader reports to share:

Read More

A day and a half after the deadly shooting in the 9200 block of 16th SW, no updates from police, but we know more about the man who died:

(Photo republished with permission)
We know more about 40-year-old Stephen Jeffries, Jr., thanks to a friend’s effort to make sure the shooting doesn’t go unsolved. Mr. Jeffries is survived by four daughters (three of whom are with him in the photo above). He was a 20-year employee of Seattle Public Utilities. His longtime friend Mike Wheeler set up a Facebook page to publicize the search for tips and has also started a crowdfunding campaign for reward money.

Mike says of his friend, “He was a homeowner, one-time business owner, and good friend to so many people in the Seattle area as he was born and raised here. … Stevie was loved by so many people of different race, religion, and status that many people are in serious pain right now. I started the Facebook page because I, like so many others, are in serious pain because of his loss.”

Read More

Another semi-high-profile West Seattle case is closing with a plea bargain: This time, it’s 20-year-old Sean Jeardoe, first mentioned here in early July after being arrested in a stolen truck spotted in the West Seattle Thriftway (WSB sponsor) parking lot by a reader who remembered seeing a WSB Crime Watch story about the truck. This reader-contributed photo from that day is the only one we have of him:

Charges weren’t filed against Jeardoe until September, as reported here, and by then he also was under suspicion in other crimes, including burglaries on Vashon Island. In all, documents say he confessed to 22 burglaries all over King County, from Shoreline to Issaquah to Vashon to Tukwila. Stolen property from many of them was found in a Sunrise Heights trailer and a White Center apartment, both places where he had been staying.

Yesterday afternoon, Jeardoe pleaded guilty to 14 felonies – eight burglary charges, three auto-theft-related charges, and three counts of gun theft, with crime-scene addresses listed in court documents including West Seattle, North Seattle, Shoreline, Burien, and Vashon. Prosecutors are recommending a variety of concurrent sentences that would add up to eight and a half years (102 months) in prison. Jeardoe has served jail time before – including the 3 1/2 months he’s been in since his September arrest – but not prison time. He is scheduled to be sentenced by Superior Court Judge Theresa Doyle on February 7th.

P.S. The woman arrested with him in July and September and described repeatedly in court documents as “his pregnant girlfriend,” 34-year-old Jessica Detrick, has nothing showing on her record since she spent five days in jail in September. As we reported then, she was released after pleading guilty in a 2012 burglary case, which shows as the most recent case filed against her in King County – no charges appear from either of the arrests this year.

Three West Seattle Crime Watch notes tonight. First, doublecheck before bedtime to make sure your doors are locked. That’s the message one West Seattleite is sharing, after someone broke into her mom’s house in North Admiral:

My mother in-law lives on Palm Ave SW and woke up at 3 am Sunday morning to a person standing in her living room. When confronted, they ran out the unlocked kitchen door in which they entered. Cash and a watch were stolen; no one was hurt, luckily. A reminder to lock all doors and windows; motion lights will now be installed at this residence.

Nighttime break-ins are actually more brazen than daytime burglaries, since there’s more of a chance the burglar(s) will be confronted.

We also have an update from a burglary reported here one week ago: The reader who first told us about the 13-year-old arrested in connection with at least two break-ins says she found something he left behind – somebody else’s laptop. She was trying over the weekend to reach police to get them to come take it.

Finally, a hit-run driver damaged a parked car and destroyed a fence early Sunday in Westwood. Two readers mentioned it to us that morning – and then we heard directly from the fence’s owner, Laura:

A car took out my fence at 36th Ave SW and Barton St.

The front end of the car in the photo was also smashed.

Laura says it was somebody else’s car; the hit-run car and driver both got away. The fence was to be fixed today.

Two West Seattle Crime Watch notes this morning, one of which came with this photo:

That car was stolen from Moe, who writes:

I am one of the 14 West Seattle citizens on the auto theft list for Christmas week. My locked 2000 Honda CRV was stolen from the street sometime Christmas Eve, then found by the police in the Sodo district the afternoon of Christmas Day. It had been ‘chop-shopped,’ stripped and destroyed. I offer this picture of its condition as an ‘owner beware and alert.’

If you haven’t seen it, the “auto-theft list” to which Moe refers was in our previous Crime Watch roundup, here. P.S. Only one auto theft has been reported since we captured that list about a day and a half ago, Friday morning at 26th/Andover (map).

One other report today – if you find a tossed-aside bag with papers inside, or maybe just the papers, they might belong to Leah, who writes, “Stolen work bag from van in Admiral area on Friday. Luckily computer wasn’t in but important work papers were.” (On followup, she describes it as a “black laptop bag.”)

(WSB photo from June 23rd)
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

Six months after drunkenly running a stop sign and T-boning a car at 17th/Cambridge, seriously injuring two people, and running away, 26-year-old Kalameu (aka Kalameli) Paulo is awaiting sentencing after a plea bargain. One of the two people she hit, 29-year-old Logan Wicker, on his way home from work at Skylark when Paulo hit his car, spent weeks in the hospital before moving to a rehabilitation facility.

According to King County Superior Court documents, Paulo pleaded guilty last week to the two vehicular-assault charges (incorporating DUI) against her, while the third charge, felony hit-and-run, was dropped. She was in jail for less than three weeks after her arrest; her request for lower bail was granted on condition she participate in the “day reporting” program CCAP (explained here), and documents indicate that will continue until her sentencing in five weeks. Her blood-alcohol level is reported to have been .16 when measured after the crash, twice the legal-drunkenness threshold level. Her criminal record is described as consisting of a theft case in Renton and two cases six years ago in Las Vegas, theft and prostitution. Police said she had only lived in Western Washington (she lists a Seatac address) for five months at the time of the crash.

The recommended sentence detailed in the plea-agreement documents is 14 months (for each count, but served concurrently), followed by 18 months of probation (technically “community custody”) with stipulations including staying out of bars and liquor stores, and only driving with an interlock device that won’t work if her blood-alcohol level is above .02. Superior Court Judge Julie Spector is scheduled to preside at Paulo’s sentencing at the downtown courthouse January 31st.

There’s been no public update on Logan Wicker since August, and we have never had a public update on his passenger, reported to have suffered a serious head injury. But we’re trying to find out, and will add anything we get.

In West Seattle Crime Watch – a check of the crime map shows car thefts are the trend of the week, with 15 reported between December 20th and 26th (yesterday), including seven reported on just one day, December 21st (though two of those seven apparently happened some days earlier). Full list ahead, plus the numbers on burglars and car prowls, but first – two reader reports, one with a photo:

Barry explains:

Sadly, someone didn’t get the memo about the season. A nice silver mountain dwarf pine was unceremoniously yanked from our property on Christmas Eve on SW Frontenac Street. The plant was eventually to be donated to a local park, so everyone kind of lost out. We left a sign in the hole as a guilty inducement, as even the Grinch was shown to have a heart in the end. We don’t hold out much hope for these clowns, however.

Meantime, from the 5400 block of Fauntleroy Way, Kristin reports:

I got home late at night on 12/24 after being out of town for several days. I saw my mailbox was full, along with the two right next to mine that belong to my neighbors (we live in a house that is split into three different units). All three mailboxes were full at 11:45pm on 12/24. I forgot to take my mail inside that night, and when I went to get it before work on the morning of 12/25 at 6:15, all three mailboxes were empty.

When I returned home from work on 12/25 at 8:30 pm, mail was strewn about the front porch. Mine was opened, and there’s no way that four days worth of mail is what was returned. They returned the ads/coupons and personal Christmas cards. There weren’t any of the typical credit card offers or bills that usually come.

All in all, my mail was stolen and my neighbors suffered the same ordeal.

After that original note, by the way, she contacted her landlord to ask for locked mailboxes. He lives about a mile away from her – and, Kristin wrote, “said he would consider it as his mail was stolen a week ago.” If you haven’t already heard SPD’s mail-theft prevention advice, it’s included in this info published by the West Seattle Block Watch Captains’ Network.

Now – click ahead for the date/place list elaborating on the auto-theft map:

Read More

Here’s hoping for a “Silent Night” from here – but it hasn’t been a slow day for West Seattle public-safety personnel:

SCHOOL SUSPECTS: SPD called in Seattle Fire this past hour to help them get two suspects off the roof of the old, soon-to-be-demolished Genesee Hill school building. District security called SPD to check out a possible break-in; if you drove SW Genesee past the school, you might have seen the big response.

After a lengthy search, officers found two men. They are suspected to have been squatting there, we were told by police at the scene. Officers wound up on the roof with at least one of the suspects and asked for SFD’s help in getting him down; Ladder 11 from Station 32 in The Junction responded, and as you see in our photo, its crew wound up using a portable ladder rather than the truck’s big ladder.

No details yet on the men’s ages or whether they were booked into jail.

AUTO THEFTS: Two reader reports have come in today about stolen cars whose owners ask you to be on the lookout for them. First:

My car was stolen this morning (12/24) around 10 am in West Seattle. I had it parked on the street in front of my home on the 5000 block of 38th Ave SW. It is an older model Honda CRV 2000 …license plate number WYG585 .Color is red with a few stickers on the backside as well a spare tire with black cover….If you have any information, please contact the non emergency police line at 206-625-5011 … Thank you!

Also, from Sally:

My car was stolen over the weekend. The last time I saw it was on Saturday, 12/21/13 at 9:30 pm and I found out it was missing on Monday, 12/23/13 at 7:30 am. It was stolen from the North Admiral area in a secure parking garage.

It is a dark green 97 Honda Accord in pretty good shape. It has a spoiler and the letters and logos are in gold. The license plate number is 521-ZDJ. If anyone finds it, please report to the police. Thank you in advance and I hope you enjoy the holidays.

11:11 AM: Last night we were asked about a sizable police response and apparent arrest in Arbor Heights near 35th and 102nd. Today, we have details: Police arrested a 13-year-old suspected in multiple burglaries/attempts. Officers found him after a report of someone trying to break into a house near 98th/32nd; items found on him were linked to other break-ins. The report we obtained from police says he just got out a week ago after serving time for other burglaries. Still working on more info – added details to come.

ADDED 12:33 PM: More details from the report:

Read More

An Audi stolen from Genesee Hill, mentioned in West Seattle Crime Watch 10 days ago, was found a few days after it was taken. We learned this because we discovered its alleged thieves are in jail – charged in connection with four stolen vehicles.

32-year-old Leslie Davis and 42-year-old Bryan Tiedeman were arrested eight days ago, the afternoon of Sunday, December 15th, after crashing a stolen 1996 gray Honda Civic in the 7700 block of Highland Park Way SW.

Read More

Unlike burglars, car prowlers tend to work at night. But not the one Susan wants to warn you about. Just out of the WSB inbox:

My car was prowled between 9:02 a.m. and 9:18 a.m. this morning parked just off California between Graham and Raymond. The suspect was a white male driving a white Honda civic or a white Acura. He has a beard, is wearing a camouflage jacket and has glasses. We filed a police report, but wanted to warn people to lock their cars if they haven’t already done so.

She’s still checking to see what’s missing and has noted the thief took “some papers from the glove box”; he was scared away when someone pulled up.

Six West Seattle Crime Watch reader reports from the queue – we were working on them just before last night got busy, and then came the snow. First, a unique stolen keepsake that you might be able to help find. From Eileen:

I know this must be a joke, but for one reason only, I’m not laughing. My Aunt gave my Grandfather a little yard gnome that looked like a child. After my Grandfather and Aunt both died, I inherited it. It’s been in my front yard for decades. Last summer my Grandson asked me to paint the little gnome to look like a Smurf. We painted his Great-Great Grandfather’s Smurf together. We have since added a red “Papa Smurf” of little value. Someone removed them from my yard and dropped off the neighbors’ metal yard art. Our whole family is very upset about the stolen Smurf! Papa Smurf can continue on his journey, but not the little one. Please help us get the white and blue childlike Smurf back. My Aunt signed and dated it. Thanks.

Ahead, five more reader reports:

Read More