While two men arrested Jan. 9 await a March 15 trial on charges with two home thefts authorities believe may be connected to a recent string of “door-knocking” daytime residential burglaries, the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office is investigating three home burglaries that occurred in the past week.
None of the three recent daytime burglaries was accompanied by reports of people knocking on doors to see if anyone was home before entering homes, Clallam County Sheriff Bill Benedict said Thursday.
Law enforcement will “probably find” that there have been two or more groups of robbers working loosely together to commit the daytime burglaries, said Benedict.
Port Angeles police and Clallam County sheriff’s deputies arrested Andrew J. Ellsworth and Zachary R. Oravetz on Jan. 9 in investigation of two burglaries — one in Port Angeles and one off of Hennessy Lane west of town.
Oravetz, 21, and Ellsworth, 45, have been charged with two counts of residential burglary and six counts of firearm theft.
They pleaded not guilty to the charges Jan. 15.
Their arrests were part of a two-county investigation into reports of people going from house-to-house knocking on doors to see if anyone was home before choosing a residence to burglarize.
The suspicious activity may be connected to a “large portion” of the 30 residential burglaries reported in unincorporated east Clallam County within a month preceding the arrest of the two men, as well as “several” of the 10 reported in Sequim, and one in Port Angeles during the same time period, authorities have said.
A robbery in Port Townsend in December may also be connected, police have said.
Neighbors living near one of the homes that Ellsworth and Oravetz are accused of robbing said that two men had knocked on their door with a suspicious excuse the day the robbery occurred, authorities have said.
No incidents of people knocking on doors to see if anyone is home before robbing a residence have been reported since the tactic was reported in several media outlets on the North Olympic Peninsula earlier this month, Benedict said.
But law enforcement officers from across the Peninsula are following leads to track the other burglars, Benedict said, adding that a couple of people arrested in Oregon may have been involved.
