A 46-year-old Homer resident was arrested Wednesday for a series of burglaries in Cooper Landing, Alaska State Troopers said Thursday.
Troy Holzheimer is accused of “at least five different burglaries,” according to a trooper dispatch. He’s charged with five counts of first-degree burglary, four counts of fifth-degree criminal mischief and five counts of fourth-degree theft — though the dispatch notes that further charges “are expected as more property owners discover the extent of his criminal activity in the region.”
According to an affidavit by Trooper Spencer Burgin, included with charging documents, Seward-based troopers were first told on Dec. 23 of a burglary on Quartz Creek Road in Cooper Landing. The man reporting the burglary said that his home had been broken into, also that it had been also burglarized a week earlier though without property damage because the door had been left unlocked.
Food and beer had been stolen, as well as marijuana, the man told troopers. The affidavit says that trooper’s investigation found that “interestingly, there were multiple items of value inside this cabin which were not stolen.”
The man who reported on Dec. 23 the Quartz Creek Road burglary installed a security camera, and the next day provided video of a man walking up to his cabin — though he didn’t enter that night.
Burgin writes that he soon learned of other burglaries in the Quartz Creek area, all also with forced entry, on Dec. 12, Dec. 21 and Dec. 31.
When troopers were called to a reported burglary on Tuesday, Dec. 31, at around 5 p.m., an intruder was said to still be inside the cabin. Before troopers arrived, he had fled into the woods. The affidavit says that troopers and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service followed footprints and a trail using drones.
That same day, troopers published a photo of a man wanted as a “person of interest” in the case and called on Cooper Landing residents not to pick up hitchhikers.
A helicopter found Holzheimer Wednesday, Jan. 1 around 8 miles from where the burglaries were reported to have occurred, southwest of Porcupine Island in Kenai Lake.
The affidavit says that Holzheimer matches a description provided by the people who reported the Dec. 31 burglary, as well as the photos provided by the man from the Dec. 23 burglary.
Holzheimer told troopers, per the affidavit, that he entered the homes in need of shelter and provisions.
The trooper dispatch says that Holzheimer was taken to Spring Creek Correctional Center. He’s scheduled to appear at the Seward Courthouse on Jan. 9.
Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.
