PORT ANGELES — A man and woman from Port Angeles have been charged with several counts of burglary and theft stemming from break-ins reported at two homes about 9 miles apart.
The burglaries are part of what city police are calling “an unusually high” number of home and commercial burglaries investigated in the past two weeks.
Addison Gale-Romack, 19, and Mark Thomas Keend, 31, are accused of breaking into two homes, one allegedly twice, and stealing belongings, including firearms, knives, a computer, jewelry, collector sports cards, old coins and a cellphone.
The break-ins were reported in late August and early September at a home along Gerber Road off state Highway 112 west of Port Angeles and a home in the 900 block of West 16th Street.
Those home burglaries are in addition to at least eight other attempted or actual commercial break-ins, said Brian Smith, deputy police chief.
Clallam County sheriff’s deputies arrested Gale-Romack and Keend — who are not suspected in the commercial break-ins — Sept. 6 at their trailer home in the woods near Milepost 52 on state Highway 112.
Both remained in the Clallam County jail Thursday, Gale-Romack with no bond set and Keend on $35,000 bond.
Gale-Romack and Keend both were charged last week with three counts of residential burglary, two counts of second-degree theft and one count of third-degree theft spread across four separate Clallam County Superior Court cases.
Keend is set to be arraigned in Superior Court today at 9 a.m.
Gale-Romack pleaded not guilty Tuesday and will appear in court Oct. 10 for a case status hearing.
Business break-ins were reported within about 36 hours of each other Sunday and Monday between South Peabody and South Race streets near East First and East Front streets, Smith said.
City police are working with the Sheriff’s Office and the Sequim Police Department to investigate the commercial burglaries, Smith said.
No arrests have been made, Smith said, though Port Angeles detectives believe they are connected and could have been committed by the same people as recent burglaries.
“The people that did those burglaries Sunday and Monday, [those are] not the only ones they’re involved in,” Smith said.
Arrests reports from city police and sheriff’s deputies gave the following account of the events leading up to the arrest of Gale-Romack and Keend:
The owner of a home along Gerber Road west of Port Angeles called police to report that someone had forced entry into his home some time during the day Aug. 21.
Two firearms, chain saws, a computer, knives, BB guns, a weed eater and various tools had been stolen.
The same home was broken into again Sept. 6, and a surveillance camera the homeowner had set up showed Gale-Romack and Keend looking into the home’s windows.
On Sept. 6, a homeowner in the 900 block of West 16th Street reported that someone had kicked down her door to enter her house.
The homeowner told police two dresser drawers containing jewelry, tools, collector sports cards, a calculator, a cellphone, old coins and various papers had been stolen.
Authorities said they found the dresser drawers from the 16th Street burglary and a number of items from the Gerber Road burglary near the trailer Gale-Romack and Keend lived in.
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Reporter Jeremy Schwartz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jschwartz@peninsuladailynews.com.
