3 arrested for home invasion

WASILLA — Investigating a home-invasion-style burglary, Alaska State Troopers wound up on the receiving end of a long tale involving trading a laptop for heroin.

The case in question was first reported at 2:15 a.m., Jan. 2 at a home on Serrano Drive in the neighborhoods off of Hyer Road.

In a sworn statement filed in court, Trooper Dug Cook writes that the initial caller said the door of a residence had been kicked in by people asking for someone named Justin. By the time troopers arrived, one of the three people had fled. Cook talked to Shivonne Gouldman, 35, of Wasilla, in the driveway.

Gouldman said she and three other people — Vincent “Lancelot” Ryall, 21, of Big Lake, Jay Burgess, 23, of Wasilla, and Justin — went to the home on Serrano drive with a laptop, which belonged to Ryall. Cook writes that Justin’s name was probably actually Jason.

The plan was to take the computer to a drug supplier Justin knew — Justin/Jason is himself a drug dealer, according to Gouldman — and trade it for heroin.

Gouldman told Cook that Justin took the computer up to the house, but then more-or-less disappeared.

“After a time when she felt Jason was not returning, she was talking on the phone with him and Jason told Shivonne he had left the residence. As she had not seen Jason leave, Shivonne pulled into the driveway,” Cook writes.

The three still left in a car, got out and walked up to the door of the house, knocked and asked for Justin. The homeowners said they didn’t know Justin and asked them to leave. A second time knocking on the door attained similar results.

An interview with Burgess confirmed most of what Gouldman said and picks up the story from there.

“He assumed Jason went into the residence, but was not certain,” Cook writes, referring to Burgess. “After being told Jason was not there and not believing the home owner, someone shut off the power to the house and Vincent kicked in the front door to take back the laptop.”

Hearing a third time from the homeowner that Jason wasn’t there and that troopers had been summoned, Ryall took off on foot just before troopers arrived.

The two people home at the door was kicked in told troopers they were afraid of the subjects breaking in as soon as the power was cut.

Cook wrote that troopers began a search for Ryall, calling in the Wasilla Police Department’s tracking/drug detection dog Marshal. The dog tracked Ryall to a spot near Hyer Road where they found Ryall laying face down in the snow with the hood of his jacket up.

Once Ryall was in custody, Marshal indicated to his handler that he’d found drugs in the spot he was laying.

“In that spot a small wooden box was located. This small wooden box contained four small plastic bags, ‘bindles,’ containing a total of 1.19 grams of a white crystalline substance that tested presumptive positive as methamphatmines using one field test kit,” Cook wrote.

Ryall was charged with drug misconduct. He, Gouldman and Burgess were all charged with burglary, criminal mischief and assault. The criminal mischief relates to the $600 damage they allegedly did to the door that was kicked in. The assault charge was levied under the statute that allows a charge if a person’s actions caused someone to fear injury.

Bail was set at $35,000 for Gouldman and at $25,000 for the other two, according to court records. As of Friday afternoon, all three remained incarcerated at the Mat-Su Pre-Trial Facility.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.