Flunking Crime 101

WASILLA – It might have been bad luck, poor planning or a combination of both, but Alaska State Troopers say the same would-be burglar twice had people return home while he was trying to steal from them.

He’s in jail now.

It all started Wednesday on Iliamna Drive. A woman arrived home shortly after 2 p.m. just as a man left her home. Troopers believe that man was Daniel Bailey, 20, of Wasilla.

While the woman was away, Bailey hooked up her cargo trailer to his pickup and loaded it with her belongings.

Troopers say the woman confronted Bailey and he jumped in his pickup and left with her trailer in tow. He got about six miles. Troopers say they found the overturned trailer on Vine Road.

The woman was able to give troopers a description of the pickup – older, dirty, and light blue.

It wouldn’t be long before troopers heard that same description.

The next day, this time shortly before 2 p.m., troopers were called out to a home near Hyer Spur.

A man there reported coming home to find a light blue pickup backed up to the front door of his house. Troopers say he went inside to find Bailey stacking the man’s belongings by the front door. A scuffle ensued.

“The home owner armed himself with a guitar and struck the man. The man attempted to fight back, striking the home owner in the face before fleeing the scene,” troopers report.

Police-band radio traffic at the time indicated that troopers immediately noted the similarity to the pickup spotted on Iliamna Drive.

The pickup’s description was given to available officers and Pete Steen, the Palmer Police Department’s officer stationed with the troopers’ Bureau of Highway Patrol, was the first to spot it.

What followed was an afternoon’s worth of pursuit, drawing in numerous troopers and, according to deputy chief Greg Wood, most Wasilla police officers on duty at the time.

“We left a couple of officers for Wasilla here covering regular calls but it was a pretty large area that this guy ran into where they were tracking,” Wood said. “We posted officers through the city trying to find this guy.”

At the end of Clapp Road, off Knik-Goose Bay Road, Bailey ended up putting his pickup in the ditch. Despite deep snow and adverse weather, troopers report, they were able, with help from Wasilla and Roelle, a trooper police dog, to track Bailey down where he was hiding in the woods.

Then the troopers’ investigators took over. The Property Crimes Unit, reports say, was able to link him to the first burglary.

Bailey was jailed at the Mat-Su Pre-Trial Facility on $10,000 bail. He is charged with felony failure to stop for police, burglary, theft, criminal mischief, drug misconduct, vehicle theft and assault.