Troopers track Big Lake-area burglary suspect prior to arrest

BIG LAKE — Alaska State Troopers charged a Houston man with six felonies and four misdemeanors Sunday stemming from nine thefts.

The thefts troopers say Dawson Sult, 28, happened between Jan. 23 and Feb. 21 and include stolen items ranging from barrels of fuel taken from a fuel distributor to fuel siphoned from home heating oil tanks to snowmachines stolen from cabins to home break-ins. All of them are in the Big Lake and Flat Lake areas.

According to a sworn statement Trooper Tim Cronin filed in Sult’s criminal case, at 5:30 p.m., Feb. 25, AST’s Crime Suppression Unit — formed this year to combat property crimes — received a tip saying Sult had been burglarizing homes.

Troopers went to his apartment and talked to a roommate, Patrick O’Hara.

“O’Hara admitted to being present with Sult during burglaries in the Big Lake and Flat Lake areas,” Cronin writes. “O’Hara stated specifically that he was present for a burglary on Flat Lake, in which he stole food and blankets because he needed food. Sult stole other items while O’Hara waited in his vehicle.”

The vehicle in question was relatively distinctive — a tan 1993 Ford Explorer with the ignition punched out and four different tires, each with a different tread pattern.

After talking to O’Hara and matching up thefts in the area to Sult’s modus operandi, Cronin obtained a warrant to install a tracking device on Sult’s Explorer.

On March 5, they started tracking Sult. In the wee hours of the morning they saw he went to a home at Mile 2, Point MacKenzie Road and stayed there for five hours, went back to his apartment in Big Lake, then spent an hour at a home on Gable Way in Wasilla.

Later, he wound up at Burnt Point in Big Lake working with acquaintances on a vehicle that was apparently having mechanical trouble on the ice road.

The Gable Way home was vacant. There were signs Sult had walked up to the door but hadn’t entered it. A cabin on Burnt Point, meanwhile, where Sult had stayed for a half hour, showed signs that thieves had tried to steal the home’s heating oil tank, damaging a wall surrounding it.

“Photographs were obtained of four different tire tread patterns that were all on Sult’s vehicle,” Cronin writes.

But that house on Point MacKenzie Road seems to have been the real find. Inside, troopers found a snowmachine stolen from Burnt Point on Feb. 18 and an ice fishing tent and custom Xtra Tuff boot stolen from a home on Flat Lake, also on Feb. 18.

Troopers arrested Sult on Saturday. He was jailed at the Mat-Su Pre-Trial Facility. At his first court appearance Sunday, his bail was set at $10,000. As of Monday afternoon he was still incarcerated there.

Cronin outlines the following thefts in his court filing as allegedly being Sult’s work:

• Jan. 23, gas siphoned from an unoccupied cabin on Burnt Point.

• Feb. 4, Sult pulled over near Trunk Road with 55-gallon fuel drums allegedly stolen from Crowley Petroleum in the back of his van.

• Feb. 8, 100 gallons of fuel siphoned from a home on Burnt Point.

• Feb. 13, 25 gallons of fuel and a fuel pump stolen from a home on Flat Lake.

• Feb. 17, two boats were ransacked with a fuel tank assembly and 50 gallons of fuel, a spotlight and various tools stolen.

• Feb. 18, two snowmachines were stolen from Burnt Point.

• Feb. 18, a television, clothes, food, boots, an ice fishing tent and alcohol were stolen from a home on Flat Lake.

• Feb. 18, a snowmachine and fuel were stolen from a home on Burnt Point.

• Feb. 21, a fuel pump, propane and $2,500 worth of diesel fuel were stolen from a home.

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