No burning mystery in this arrest

Published 7:55 pm Wednesday, December 22, 2010

LAKE STEVENS — Smoky burning garbage led a Snohomish County sheriff’s deputy to a man hiding inside a camper Tuesday in Lake Stevens.

The deputy saw garbage and wires in a fire pit, as well as smoldering wires and trash around the property, court records show. While waiting for fire crews, he found some interesting things:

• Wires reportedly running from a PUD pole to another pole through a power bypass device. The wires also were running to an RV and a mobile home on the property.

• A man “clearly visible” through the window of a camper on the property.

The deputy asked the man to come out from the camper. The man obliged and confirmed that he was renting at the property.

The man “claimed to have been sleeping in the abandoned camper filled with garbage,” the deputy wrote in his report.

The deputy also asked the man why his hands were black with soot. The man said it had nothing to do with the burning black wire nearby.

The man, 48, of Lake Stevens was later booked into Snohomish County Jail for investigation of defrauding a public utility, illegal dumping and illegal wire burning.