Shoes lead to conviction

PALMER — Troopers following a trail in the snow thought they’d stumbled on a burglary in progress when they entered a darkened house. Instead, they found Gordon F. Kamholz IV in his home, wet from the pants down.

Kamholz, 21, of Big Lake, was convicted Wednesday after a day-long trial on charges he cut phone and power lines to a home and damaged the homeowner’s Suburban.

Gordon F. Kamholz IV, 21, was arrested in November. He was convicted of burglary, trespassing and criminal mischief, all charges prosecutor Kerry Corliss pressed. He was acquitted on one charge.

“I asked them (jury) to find him not guilty on the fourth one,” prosecutor Kerry Corliss said, since the charge related to damages less than $500.

Troopers were called to Knollwood Drive early in the morning of Nov. 23. At trial Tuesday, the owner of the home, Billie Smith, described for the jury what had happened.

“Sometime after one o’clock in the morning something was making a lot of noise around the back of the house.”

Smith said he looked outside and saw two men on his property running toward his garage. His power was out but he got a phone working and called his neighbor, who said he hadn’t been on Smith’s property that night.

“Then I grabbed my shotgun and ran out front,” Smith said. “When they cleared the garage that’s when I got their attention with the shotgun.”

Corliss asked Smith if by that he meant he fired a round. He confirmed that he did.

“I didn’t intend to hit them,” Smith said.

One man, he said, took off running. The other went back into his garage but soon came out again.

He said he fired another round, “at his butt. I don’t know if I hit him or not.”

Smith fired a third round and the men were gone.

Smith then called the troopers who arrived in short order. He said he later surveyed the damage. His phone lines had been cut, as had has power lines. In his garage, there was a hammer on the passenger seat of his Suburban. The key switch and various devices on the steering column were smashed.

Asked if he got a good look at the men, Smith said he didn’t.

“All I saw was the back end of them going the other way,” he said.

On the stand directly after Smith was Trooper Duane Leventry. A former solider, Leventry said he’d received training on tracking people while in the U.S. Army. He put that to use in following shoe prints leading from Smith’s yard.

He followed the tracks across the street then through the woods. At some point along the way a homeowner shouted that he’d seen somebody run past.

“I said, ‘Right on. Go back in the house please, sir,’” Leventry said.

Eventually, Leventry said, running through deep snow, he ended up on Ronnie Court, which intersects with Big Lake Road. Another trooper showed up and they decided to go inside. The lights were off, he said, and the door was open.

“We actually thought we had walked into another burglary,” Leventry said.

But they were actually at Kamholz’s home. They found him inside with wet pants and snow on his shoes.

Kamholz told troopers he’d walked through Smith’s yard trying to find a shortcut home. He was drunk. He heard the shots and started running.

“I just wanted to get home. I was scared. I just wanted to get home,” he told troopers on the recording Leventry made of the talk.

Asked why he yanked out Smith’s phonelines and cut off his power, Kamholz said he didn’t.

“I didn’t steal anything. I didn’t burglarize anything I didn’t vandalize anything.”

Later, Kamholz spoke with Leventry again, this time at the trooper post.

“All these charges are going on you and you alone unless you level with me,” Leventry said. He was trying to find out who else was with Kamholz. In the two interviews, Kamholz insisted he was alone.

Leventry told Kamholz why the vandalism, and the choice of items destroyed, was so alarming to troopers.

“It kind of seemed like something bad was going to happen to the people inside,” Leventry said.

But Kamholz stuck to his story and eventually Leventry broke off the interview. But since he’d had seized a pair of shoes to compare to tracks left at the scene, he left Kamholz with a piece of advice.

“When you do bail out, make sure they bring you another pair of shoes.”

Kamholz is due to receive his prison sentence June 5.