Alaska State Troopers last week charged an Anchor Point man with the theft of a Dodge Durango from an Anchorage parking lot in May. Troopers found the truck on May 12 after it had been abandoned in a car crash on Coleman Lantern Avenue in Anchor Point.
Dylan C. Adkins, 24, is charged with first-degree vehicle theft, second-degree theft, both felonies, driving while license revoked and failure to report an accident.
Adkins was arrested in late May on other felony charges of first-degree burglary, second-degree theft and first-degree vehicle theft. Adkins has a history of car theft, including a 2008 charge when a K-9 trooper, Anchor, ran him down and helped apprehend him. Adkins is in custody at Wildwood Pretrial Facility.
According to a criminal complaint by Trooper Sam Webber, when troopers found the wrecked Dodge Dakota last May, it was identified as having been stolen from an Eagle River man in Anchorage.
The truck had hit several trees and a parked trailer. A license plate didn’t match the truck and belonged to an Anchor Point man troopers knew to be an associate of Adkins. Troopers also found the Eagle River man’s wallet on the car’s hood.
Another trooper, Trooper David Chaffin, told Webber in May he had information about who might have driven the stolen Dodge.
Webber had been working another stolen vehicle case in Homer in which Adkins was a suspect and learned Adkins might have been driving a stolen truck. On May 11, Chaffin saw a Dodge Dakota on the North Fork Road in Anchor Point and followed it, but lost the truck when it was driven at speeds of 100 mph. Chaffin last saw the truck near Coleman Lantern Road.
Troopers on May 26 arrested Adkins and his girlfriend, Julia Quales, in the southern Kenai Peninsula case. Troopers found in Adkins’ wallet a VISA credit card belonging to the Eagle River man. Quales had bruising on her face consistent with someone who was in a car crash, Webber said Chaffin told him.
In an interview, Webber said Adkins told troopers he had gone to Anchorage in Quales’ van about a month earlier.
Anchorage Police reported finding Quale’s van on fire in the WalMart parking lot on the Old Seward Highway on April 30. Witnesses said a man and woman quickly left the van and walked away. The Dodge Dakota was stolen May 1 about 8 miles from the WalMart.
Charges took so long to be filed because the stolen Dodge originally was an Anchorage Police case, thus causing some delay, said trooper spokesperson Megan Peters. Troopers were able to combine other cases with the latest charges and had forwarded charges to the Kenai district attorney.
“It all just takes time,” Peters said.
Michael Armstrong can be reached at michael.armstrong@homernews.com.
