Shoreline detective Diana Magan was recently selected as Detective of the Month by Washington’s Most Wanted. Accompanied by King County Sheriff Sue Rahr and Shoreline police Chief Dan Pingrey, detective Magan was given her award at the KCPQ studio in Seattle on Jan. 13.
Magan received the award for her involvement in solving a November 2007 burglary at a Credit Union in Shoreline where a suspect cut phone lines and drilled through the bank’s safe.
The case was assigned to detective Magan with expectations that is would never be solved. Through her contacts in the banking industry she found out that the Tacoma Police Department had a similar burglary in 2002 and arrested a suspect. She contacted the detective in the Tacoma Police Department and learned that the suspect had recently been released from prison had also served prison time twice in California for bank burglary.
Detective Magan then checked with other agencies and found similar cases in Bellevue, Federal Way, Lacey, Olympia, Pierce County, Renton and Tumwater. Because all of the banks are federally insured, she contacted the FBI and got the assistance of detective Len Carver with the Seattle Police Department. Detective Magan then organized several surveillances of the suspect using detectives from all of the agencies involved.
Through Tacoma Police she had surveillance platforms installed around the suspect’s residence and after a few weeks, had gained enough information to obtain a search warrant on March 13, 2008.
The search yielded boxes of safe diagrams showing where to drill, books on alarm systems and phone systems. During a five-hour interview with detectives Magan and Carver the suspect confessed to most of the burglaries. If found guilty the suspect could receive 15 or more years in federal prison.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
