Published early due to continued crime in the local area. This story also published fully in the Yellowstone County News 10-27-17 print edition.
Bryce Adams
SHEPHERD — Two men are in jail after they allegedly broke into a Huntley area home, crashed their getaway car, ran from the scene and forced law enforcement officers to search for them in Shepherd.
Bryce Leconte Adams and Mark Alexander Stief, both 20 years old, were arrested late Monday afternoon after fleeing from sheriff’s deputies through Huntley to the Shepherd area, prompting a manhunt that lasted several hours.
Mark Stief
After deputies and the Montana Highway Patrol went door to door, the men were arrested after someone called in a report of “a couple of suspicious people walking in the area,” said Sheriff Mike Linder.
They were charged Tuesday in Yellowstone County Justice Court. Adams is charged with felony bail jumping, burglary, theft and failure to appear. Bond is set at $35,000.
Stief is charged with burglary, theft and failure to appear. His bond is set at $41,000.
The men allegedly broke into a home on Bald Eagle Boulevard west of Huntley.
Two burglars, who rang the doorbell to see if anyone was home in broad daylight, were eventually captured due to a doorbell alert app called ring.com. This picture also captures the stolen car belonging to Duane Hanson of Huntley that was stolen on Oct. 6th. This picture linked the suspects to the car and other recent burglaries.
Homeowner Sarah Moyer said she was at work when she received an alert from a cell phone app that someone was ringing her doorbell. She started watching the security video. (See video here)
“The live feed showed a vehicle parked in front of my house that I didn’t recognize and my dog barking like crazy,” Moyer said. “I said, ‘Hello?’… I said, ‘Hey, get out of my house!'”
She called 911. Still watching the live feed, “I watched him run out of my house, drop my laptop, pick it up and get back in the car.”
Later, she watched the complete security footage.
The doorbell rang for the first time at 12:54 p.m., she said. The man acted nonchalant.
“The guy was kinda fluffing his hair, taking his sunglasses off,” she said, ready to act normal if someone answered the door. By the second ring of the doorbell, two men show on video peering in the windows. She and her husband later learned the men came in through the garage, where the door had been left open a few inches for the dog to go in and out.
Missing items include her computer, an iPad, an old, empty wallet and DeWalt tools, she said.
This suspect, Bryce Adams, is being transferred from one Yellowstone County deputies car to another in preparation to be transported and booked in the Yellowstone County Detention center Monday afternoon at 4:40pm in the Shepherd School District south parking lot. (Jonathan McNiven photo)
“But it’s all going to be recovered,” she said — law officers found it in the car. She called the doorbell alert app “the best, almost $200 we’ve ever spent.”
It’s not her first experience with home invasion, she said. Someone broke into their home in Missouri and “I actually tackled him in the hallway. I’m a ‘fight,’ not a ‘flight’ at all.”
She’s glad the men are in jail.
“I’m so glad that they found them, especially for my children,” she said. “It sounds like all our stuff will be recovered.”
Moyer wants the men to ‘serve their time,” but hopes this incident “is their rock bottom and they turn their life around.”
“Hopefully these kids will get the help they need,” she said. “They’re too young to be going down this path.”
Linder said response by deputies was almost immediate.
“The deputies got there before they got out of the driveway,” he said. The men fled along Creekmore Drive and Northern Avenue, across the Yellowstone River bridge onto Frey Road and crashed in a ditch north of Osness Road in Shepherd.
A suspect, Mark Stief, was just apprehended in Shepherd, is being transported to a vehicle after a days events of robberies, thefts and crash that started in Huntley and ended in Shepherd at Osness Rd and Frey Rd. Sheriff Mike Linder had not been able to identify the suspects at the time these pictures were released. (Jonathan McNiven photo)
Deputies found items allegedly stolen from the Bald Eagle Drive home in the car, along with items stolen in other recent burglaries, the affidavit said.
It was not clear at presstime Wednesday whether they could face additional charges stemming from ongoing investigations into burglaries of businesses and homes in Worden, Ballantine and Huntley.
“Our investigators are looking into the possibility that they might be involved in other crimes,” Linder said. He does see ties to drug activity.
“Paraphernalia was seen in the car,” he said. “I don’t know if it was meth, heroin or what it was.”
Linder believes Adams and Stief are “a major portion of what our problem is and now they’re in jail,” adding, “we’ll see if our (crime) numbers go down.”
Also unclear is whether more people may be arrested in connection with the Monday burglary or other recent criminal activity.
Three people get out of a car at Tiger Town in this image captured from a security camera early Sunday morning October 9th. Huntley resident Duane Hanson says that the car in this image taken from a video at Tiger Town in Worden is his car. (Courtesy photo)
“We don’t know if they have other people involved with them,” Linder said. “It would just be speculation on my part as to whether or not it’s an organized group of people.”
Linder said he realizes people on the Project have theories about the recent rash of crimes and may believe they know who is responsible.
“There is a lot of speculation on who the suspect or suspects are,” Linder said, “but we’ve got to be able to prove it.”
He continued to urge people to be vigilant, to lock their cars and buildings and keep valuables, including electronics and guns, inside, not in vehicles.
“People who really don’t care will cause a lot of hate and discontent,” Linder said. Noting this burglary occurred in broad daylight, “obviously these people don’t care,” he said.
Duane Hanson, of Huntley, confirmed to the Yellowstone County News that this is his car that was wrecked and totaled Monday after two thiefs stole his car and used it in other robberies and thefts in the local area. The air bags were deployed when the car crashed in Shepherd at Osness and Frey Road. (Jonathan McNiven photo)
Duane Hansen of Huntley said the car the men wrecked on Monday is his 2016 Mazda 6, stolen from his driveway in Huntley on Oct. 6.
Hansen went to the video court hearing on Tuesday. He told the Yellowstone County News that the prosecutor recommended a $5,000 bond, but then the judge asked if Hansen would like to say anything.
“They totaled my car,” an exasperated Hansen told the judge. “They painted it with a broom to disguise it. They’re 20 years old. They’re adults.”
Hansen said he was encouraged that if the men are released on bond, they will have to wear electronic monitoring bracelets, but he thinks the bond is too low.
“I think it ought to be $50,000,” he said.
Adams and Stief will be back in court for arraignment at 10 a.m. Nov. 1 before District Judge Ingrid Gustafson.
Hansen plans to be there, and he hopes other victims of the men’s alleged crimes will be there too. Court hearings are public.
“Everybody that’s a victim gets to go,” Hansen said. “They told me to be sure to be there.”
