EVERETT — This time, the robbers really stepped in it.

With a few hitches, a March 25 home-invasion robbery in Everett mostly went according to plan.

Trouble was, it wasn’t much of a plan.

And the crooks apparently left a trail — in feces.

Early that morning, two men in bandannas stormed an apartment along 18th Street in north Everett. They pepper-sprayed and beat the man who lived there, and threatened to kill his 10-year-old-son, who was asleep.

The robbery allegedly was arranged with the help of three others who were already in the apartment at the time, including a woman who knew the victim.

When the victim’s son started to wake up, all five suspects got in a car and drove off. They were pulled over in Marysville about 15 minutes later.

Investigators then had to sort out the mess.

According to court papers, detectives believe much of the robbery was organized via the suspects’ cellphones — now locked up as evidence.

Police also found baseball bats, knives, drug paraphernalia and backpacks stuffed with what appeared to be stolen goods in the getaway car.

During the commotion, someone in the apartment stepped in some kind of excrement that was lying on the victim’s carpet, according to a search warrant filed in Everett District Court earlier this week.

“A trail of where someone stepped in the feces is visible from the assault location to the exit door,” detectives wrote.

When police searched the getaway car, they looked for a matching substance, court papers say.

Tracking around feces, however, wasn’t the only way the team fouled up.

The suspects initially hit the wrong home.

The people who were inside the victim’s apartment accidentally gave the men in bandanas the apartment number for next door.

The two men knocked on that door, decked out in their robbery getup. The woman inside answered, and they asked for someone by name.

The woman told them they had the wrong apartment. They left when her German shepherd came to the door.

Undiscouraged, the five suspects met back up at the car and drove around south Everett for a while before returning, court papers show.

Three of them then went inside the victim’s apartment, under the guise of visiting with him. One of them unlocked the front door for the others waiting outside.

You know the story from there.

About 15 minutes after the robbery, police arrested three men and two women in connection with the case. All five remained behind bars Friday for investigation of first-degree robbery.

At the time of arrest, one of the men was allegedly carrying a Boeing identity badge, Costco card and checks in three names, all different from his own.

All of the people arrested have some criminal history, but this appears to be their first attempt at a violent felony.

Rikki King: 425-339-3449; rking@heraldnet.com