ST. GEORGE — A man from Michigan is being held without bail following a burglary in LaVerkin late Tuesday night after he was found by police a block away hiding on the second floor of a hotel.
According to court documents filed in support of the man’s arrest, officers were dispatched to a convenience store in the 400 block of North State Street in LaVerkin after the store manager called emergency dispatch reporting an attempted burglary.
The manager provided a description of the suspects and surveillance footage captured from inside of the store that showed two men entering the shop shortly after 11 p.m.
The footage showed the store employee, who was working alone in the store at the time, speaking with one of the suspects, while a second suspect – later identified as 21-year-old Eddric McDougal, of Flint, Michigan – leaned behind the counter and grabbed a set of keys used to unlock a number of doors within the store, the report states.
After grabbing the keys, McDougal was seen leaving the register area for a couple of minutes before returning to the same register, where he attempted to manipulate the machine to get the cash drawer open, efforts that caught the attention of the manager, who then called police.
At that point, both men fled the store in a black Ford Fusion with Ohio plates. The store manager, who was still on the phone with emergency dispatch, provided a description of the suspects and the vehicle they were driving.
Within minutes of the 911 call, officers from multiple agencies responded to the area and located a vehicle matching the description parked at the LaQuinta Inn — just a block from the convenience store where the incident took place, the officer noted in the report.
Officers approached the running vehicle and found two women sitting inside, and a search of the hotel was conducted by police.
During a search of a restroom located near the hotel lobby, officers found one of the men who matched the driver of the Ford seen in the convenience store footage. The man had been seen on the hotel camera entering the hotel through the north entrance but was never seen leaving.
As the search continued, officers located McDougal hiding inside in a maid’s closet on one of the upper levels of the hotel. As soon as the suspect walked out of the closet, he told the officer he didn’t know why he is in trouble, “because he did not take anything from the register,” the officer wrote.
McDougal later admitted to reaching behind the register and grabbing some keys, the report states, but went on to explain that he thought the keys were used to unlock the restrooms.
He also told officers that he and his friends borrowed a rental car from his brother’s friend in Michigan and the group was traveling to Riverside, California, when they ran out of money.
The suspect “in essence stated that he needed money and that was his way to get a few more dollars for the road,” the officer wrote.
McDougal was arrested and transported to Purgatory Correctional Facility facing third-degree felony burglary where he remains in custody without bail. The second suspect, the driver, was not identified in the report, nor was he arrested or charged following the incident.
This report is based on statements from court records and may not contain the full scope of findings. Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.
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