Three people were arrested this week in Anchorage, and two stolen vehicles were recovered, after the suspects were spotted in a rental house that had sat vacant for several months, Anchorage police said.
On Tuesday, neighbors on the 9600 block of Grover Drive in the Hillside area called the Anchorage Police Department, spokesperson Renee Oistad wrote in a release. The neighbors told police that people were inside a vacant rental home owned by the non-profit organization Aleutian Housing Authority.
When police arrived, they found the door had been forced open. Squatters had left trash and belongings inside the home, Oistad said.
Two vehicles – one of which turned out to be stolen, but hadn't been reported to police — and a snowmachine found on the property were towed. Aleutian Housing Authority was called in to secure the house. Neighbors were asked to call police again if they saw anything else.
A few days later, at 8:29 a.m. Thursday, a neighbor again called police, reporting people inside the unrented home. When police arrived, one man jumped out of a window and fled. Two people inside the house, 19-year-old Jazz Anderson and 24-year-old Patrick Rascon, were taken into custody, Oistad wrote.
While searching for Gould, police got a tip that he had gone inside a house on the 10300 block of Curvi Street, a short street off of Grover Drive.
Police arrived to find an elderly woman driving away from the house. Gould was in the car with her.
Gould had knocked on the elderly homeowners' doors, Oistad wrote in an email. "He constructed some type of story and asked for their help. They had no idea he was trying to evade police," she wrote.
Gould was taken into custody.
A white Dodge pickup was found inside the garage at the Grover house and identified as a second stolen vehicle. The truck had been previously reported missing from the Extended Stay Hotel, and the owner had said the vehicle was locked and he had all the keys. Its ignition had been tampered with, Oistad wrote.
On Thursday, police were still trying to determine whether the recovered snowmachine had been stolen, Oistad said.
Gould is a Wasilla resident. He had outstanding warrants for eluding a police officer and presenting a false ID in early January, and for theft cases both in Palmer and Anchorage that had been reopened in order to revoke his probation.
Anderson and Rascon are both Anchorage residents. Rascon had a previous warrant for his arrest from Dec. 23, 2016, when he was charged theft.
All three were charged with burglary and criminal mischief, according to Oistad. Gould was also charged with vehicle theft and resisting arrest.