Siblings arrested for disorderly conduct

MEADOW LAKES — A barking dog led Alaska State Troopers to a bizarre encounter with a brother and sister who were both eventually jailed for disorderly conduct.

According to Trooper Pete Steen, who filed a sworn statement in the case against Thomas Tuthill, 36, of Kotzebue, the initial call came in at 1:42 a.m., Aug. 27 from a home near the intersection of Hollywood Road and Edelweiss Lane.

“The complainant … reported his dog had started to bark and he believed someone was trying to break into his home,” Steen writes.

He said he could see a car and a pickup in the road out front. Before troopers arrived, the pickup left. Steen arrived on scene and said he saw a dark-colored Toyota Camry partially in the ditch, on the wrong side of the road.

“I could see a Native male not wearing a shirt on his knees in the roadway,” he wrote. “There was a trail of personal items leading up to the male, The male, later identified as the defendant, appeared to be drawing designs in the dirt, digging holes in the roadway, filling his pockets with dirt and showering dirt over his head and body.”

Steen wrote that a woman in the car, Jacklynn Nanini, 22 also of Kotzebue — and identified in an AST press release as Tuthill’s sister — tried to get out and talk to Steen, who told her to sit down. She said their driver had left them there and her boyfriend was on the way to get them.

“I noticed a strong odor of green marijuana coming from the car as I walked past,” Steen wrote.

Tuthill, meanwhile, “had a strong odor of alcohol on his breath, watery eyes, slurred speech and swayed and staggered,” Steen wrote.

Steen tried to talk to him, but Tuthill didn’t acknowledge him, continuing to draw in the dirt.

He also “told me I couldn’t enter his circle,” Steen wrote.

A second trooper arrived on scene and Steen asked Tuthill to stand up so he could pat him down to check for weapons “due to his bizarre behavior.”

Tuthill didn’t comply. Steen and the other trooper tried to pull him up and a struggle ensued.

“The defendant continued to wrestle with us, attempt to pull away and keep his hands underneath him,” Steen wrote.

The second trooper “applied a pressure point control” and troopers finally got control of Tuthill’s hands, which were then cuffed.

“The defendant continued to babble nonsense during the contact and tried drawing additional spirit signs around himself and kept asking me to touch him and stated, ‘you’re changing,’” Steen writes.

As for Nanini, according to an AST press release, she refused to get out of the vehicle when troopers decided to impound it for a drug search. She also got combative, troopers say, and kicked officers.

Both Nanini and Tuthill were jailed at the Mat-Su Pre-Trial Facility on charges of disorderly conduct. Both had made bail and been released as of Thursday afternoon.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or

andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.