When a stranger slipped into her barn Monday morning carrying a gas can, a great-grandmother from north Snohomish County decided to investigate.
“All I had was my cane,” the woman, 89, said Thursday. “I thought about going in there and asking him what in the world he was doing.”
Instead, the Lakewood-area woman called 911, summoning sheriff’s deputies.
She then started yelling at the man, who authorities believe was siphoning gas from her pickup truck.
When the first deputy pulled up at the scene, he could hear the woman “yelling at the defendant, and the defendant plaintively responding ‘I didn’t do anything,’ ” deputy prosecutor Chris Dickinson said Thursday in Snohomish County Superior Court papers.
Mark Anthony Vannoy, 40, of Everett, is now facing a second-degree burglary charge. He is a three-time felon, with convictions for theft and methamphetamine possession.
Vannoy allegedly was carrying a siphon hose and had more than two gallons of gas in the can when the deputy slapped on the handcuffs, Dickinson said.
The ground near the woman’s truck also was stained with freshly spilled gas.
The woman, whose name is not printed here because she was the victim of a crime, said she was “kind of afraid,” but also perturbed that somebody would apparently try to steal from her in broad daylight.
She said she’s lived in the area for 83 years. She has nine grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.
“I was told by the sheriff, ‘Do not take matters into your own hands. Call us,’” the woman said.
On Thursday, with the suspect behind bars in lieu of $10,000 bail, the woman said she is glad that she did.
Reporter Scott North: 425-339-3431 or north@heraldnet.com.
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