FWP aids in break-in case

MINERAL COUNTY – Recent crimes committed in both Mineral and Missoula Counties led to the teaming up of the two sheriff’s offices with a little help from Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks.

Vehicle break-ins at fishing access sites in both counties led investigators to arrest two suspects, John Wheeler and Elizabeth Andrade of Lolo on Aug. 10, after weeks of following the trail left behind.

Justin Singleterry, game warden of Mineral County with FWP spoke with Mineral Independent recently to describe how the case was solved, and what the current status is regarding the suspects.

“We were having reports of break-ins at the Cyr Fishing Access Site, which is managed by FWP,” Singleterry said. “There were a total of six cases, and so I started to help out Mineral County Sheriff’s Office in the investigation.”

Singleterry then described how late one night during the course of the investigation, one of the victims called him to inform him that their credit card had been attempted to be used, and that their iPhone was on. Singleterry immediately went into action, and followed the iPhone signal to a residence in Lolo.

“I went up to the house, and knocked on the door,” he said. “No one answered, so I pretended to leave but really went to watch the house. Sure enough, two suspects left the house in a car in an attempt to hide the stolen items.”

The next day, Singleterry and Mineral County Deputy Joe Bettis went to Missoula for further investigation regarding the attempted use of one of the victims’ credit cards. They checked surveillance cameras, and spoke with businesses. They eventually gathered enough evidence to obtain a warrant to seize the car Singleterry had watched the suspects make their run in, and had it towed.

“Then the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office Detective David Walrod saw what we were doing, got a hold of us, and said hey, we’re working the same case,” Singleterry said. “So, we put the two cases together and got a search warrant.”

Inside the residence and vehicle, they found stolen ID’s, credit cards, social security cards and personal property.

Singleterry said in just one trash bag, there were 13 different victims’ ID’s, cards, etc. It took him nearly two and half hours to dig through and sort it all out.

“They’ve been going at it for a while,” Singleterry said. “The female suspect is cooperating completely and is giving up the whole story.”

Because of her cooperation, it was revealed that one of the victims’ belongings was sitting out in some bushes where the suspects had thrown it – an expensive designer bag worth $2,500.

“They didn’t know it was worth so much and threw it out the window into some bushes,” Singleterry said. “So, we were able to get that back to the victim, which is always a good thing.”

As for the rest of the personal belongings of the other victims, Singleterry said they are “still working the case, trying to get the rest of them sorted.”

Singleterry also said the next step of the process, with two suspects in custody and still so much to collect and go through, they will draw up paperwork to give to the county attorney, who then will administer the charges.

“The question we kept asking ourselves was, ‘why would they come to Tarkio from Lolo?’ Well, it turns out that Wheeler was originally from Tarkio, he knows about the Alberton Gorge, he knows where people leave their vehicles to recreate on the river.”

For Singleterry, the clues kept adding up and he knew he had to keep going with the case to see it through to where it is now.

“It was a fun case to work on and the main thing is there can now be closure for the victims and we can get them their property back,” Singleterry said. “A lot of times, we don’t get big cases like this in the summer [for FWP]. But, once there’s a trail to follow, I keep following it until there’s no trail left.”