Trail camera films burglars

WASILLA — A game camera led to the arrest of a local couple after a local caretaker called Alaska State Troopers to report video and still photos of a burglary in progress along Dawn Lake Drive.

Heather Meyer, 26, and Miles “Milo” Walker, 35, of Wasilla, face first-degree burglary charges and fourth-degree theft charges in Palmer Court, according to court documents. Meyer also faces one charge of violating the conditions of her release from jail, according to court documents.

A caretaker at the residence contacted members of the Mat-Su Crime Suppression Unit in September with images of Meyer and Walker removing paper plates, napkins, propane bottles, and a wood stove from the property, according to a criminal affidavit written by Alaska State Trooper Andrew Ballesteros.

The caretaker added the cameras after locks on the residence were cut six times, Ballesteros wrote.

Two troopers recognized Meyer in the photos and video as being in violation of the conditions of her release from an earlier case, according to the affidavit. A judge issued a warrant for Meyer’s arrest Sept. 30 after she missed a bail hearing on third- and fourth-degree drug misconduct charges dating to Feb. 21, 2013, court records show.

Ballesteros said there was a well-worn trail to an adjoining property, where they found Walker and a black backpack seen in the video, wrote.

“Walker was positively identified as the unidentified male in the camera footage of the burglary,” Ballesteros wrote.

And Walker admitted the theft, according to the affidavit.

One of the conditions of Meyer’s release was a court-appointed third party custodian. When troopers searched the custodian’s residence, they didn’t find her.

The custodian “stated that he and Meyer were not getting along and she was constantly leaving the residence and spending time with her boyfriend, Walker” Ballesteros wrote.

Troopers found Meyer riding as a passenger in a car Tuesday and arrested her on the warrant from the 2013 case as well as the new charges. She, too admitted the theft, according to the affidavit.

She remained in Mat-Su Pretrial Thursday on $25,000 bail, courts and corrections documents show.