Wasilla pair suspected in string of robberies

WASILLA — Two men were arrested this week, charged with a home-invasion robbery, and Alaska State Troopers are strongly suggesting the suspects may have had their hands in more than 10 other robberies in Anchorage and the Valley starting in October 2010.

The last robbery was called in at 4:20 p.m., Jan. 30, when two men in masks and bandanas brandishing handguns bound a woman with duct tape and rope at a home on Knik-Goose Bay Road. The men ransacked the home, making off with several guns, an Xbox, jewelry and $200 cash.

On Tuesday, Alaska State Troopers and Wasilla police officers served a search warrant on a home on Totem Avenue in the Williwaw subdivision, turning up “most of the items (stolen) in the home invasion robbery,” an AST report says.

Myles Hoeger, 19, and John Eichler, 28, both of Wasilla, were arrested and charged with robbery, burglary, theft and kidnapping.

In an affidavit filed in court in the cases against Hoeger and Eichler, trooper investigator Ronald Hayes lays out what led up to the arrest and makes clear that law enforcement had been hunting the men for some time.

He notes a man matching Hoeger’s description robbed the Half Rack Liquor Store on Wasilla-Fishhook Road on Nov. 17 and a Tesoro station on Knik-Goose Bay Road on Nov. 19. Hayes also draws parallels to a pull-tab parlor on the Parks Highway that was robbed twice, first on Nov. 26 and again on Jan. 16. Parlor employees said the robber appeared to be the same guy both times. His description lined up with Hoeger’s.

A failed robbery, in which a homeowner described watching a Bronco II pull into his driveway Nov. 17 and two men get out — one holding a gun in one hand and duct tape in the other — scored troopers a license plate number. They later found the Bronco abandoned in Meadow Lakes and impounded it.

While investigating the robberies, Hayes reports he called the Anchorage Police Department’s robbery unit and learned that six, pull-tab parlors were robbed between October and December, all by “a young white male with a dark-colored pistol.”

In each case the suspect appeared to be wearing different clothes, and Hayes tracked down a description of the clothing in each case, providing an itemized list in his affidavit.

Anchorage police might have almost caught up with Hoeger on Dec. 11. A red BMW was seen driving away from a pull-tab parlor robbery on 36th Avenue and a witness followed it to the area of Spenard near the Bear Tooth Theater.

With the help of the witness, officers found the BMW nearby. The engine was still warm.

Hoeger’s brother, Edward, came out to tell police the car belonged to his brother, that he’d parked it and left with a friend in a pickup. Anchorage police impounded the BMW.

After talking with APD, Hayes looked Hoeger up on Facebook and Myspace. He found photos of the teen wearing sunglasses similar to those described in the robbery. At some point test results came back from tire tracks left behind at one of the Wasilla pull-tab parlors. The tracks matched the BMW.

Hayes’ affidavit seems to climax with the home invasion robbery. The woman who was robbed said she was home alone at the time when someone rang the doorbell. The two men tied her up and smashed her cell phone. They put her in a closet and barricaded it.

Eventually, Hayes writes, she “was able to get free and run to a neighbor’s house and call her brother, who called AST.”

While they were ransacking the house, the two men made ominous comments about knowing where the woman’s father was, saying that they had someone watching him.

The woman’s father was playing handball at the time. Hayes talked to him and the man he was playing handball with and found out the handball partner had an adult son, Joseph Zywot, who’d recently been kicked out of the house. Zywot apparently was aware of the woman’s father’s schedule that day, Hayes writes.

The day after the robbery the woman called Hayes to say she remembered getting a call on the house’s landline minutes before the robbery. The line is little-used, since her family members all have cell phones. Checking caller ID, she dialed the number that called her and found out it went to a payphone at the Tesoro station at Parks Highway and Main Street.

Hayes said he got some surveillance photos from around when the call was placed and that the woman’s father was able to identify the caller as Zywot.

Knowing that, Hayes said, he questioned Zywot at the Wasilla Police Department. Zywot fingered Hoeger and Eichler in the robbery. He told Hayes he knew both of them through the Valley drug scene. Zywot said he’d been carping about getting kicked out and that Hoeger and Eichler asked him for good robbery targets in the Valley. He said Hoeger bragged about the pull-tab robberies. Zywot said he gave them the address where the woman was later tied up.

“He was scared and tried to get out from the deal. Zywot sent them text messages but thought they would try and kill him,” Hayes wrote.

Zywot told troopers where Hoeger and Eichler lived, and with that information troopers went to the home in the Williwaw subdivision. In addition to the items from the home invasion, Hayes wrote, he found numerous pieces of clothing matching items in the Wasilla and Anchorage robberies.

After Eichler and Hoeger were arrested, the woman they allegedly tied up picked Eichler out of a photo lineup as Hoeger’s accomplice.

Court records show no active cases against Zywot, save for a traffic ticket for not wearing a seatbelt. Hoeger’s brother has an open case for driving without a license. Eichler and Hoeger have made one appearance in court, where their bail was set at more than $100,000.

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