Late-night theft in St. George nets 2 arrests; accused face drug, probation violation charges

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ST. GEORGE — A woman is in jail after officers found in her backpack expensive items allegedly taken from a man during a late-night search of his St. George residence.

Officers were tasked Friday morning with following up on a theft involving an individual who reported several items taken from their residence the previous night. 

According to charging documents filed with the court, the caller told police Kelsey Jean Sterzer, 24, was invited to his home the previous evening and at some point he had fallen asleep. When he woke up, he said, the woman was gone and so were several items that allegedly went missing that night. 

The reporting party also told officers he had spoken to his roommate, who reported seeing the woman walking throughout the residence carrying a flashlight very late at night. 

The caller also reported a Louis Vuitton belt valued at $750 missing after the suspect left, along with a designer watch and about $2,000 cash. 

Officers later learned the suspect possibly was staying at one of the motels on Bluff Street and was booked under the name of another individual, Jacob Peterson, 26. They also found that both are on active probation with Adult Probation and Parole. 

Officers approached the room and knocked on the door, but it wasn’t until officers announced who they were and called out Peterson’s name that the suspect opened the door. He was later detained by police.

Officers entered the room and found the bathroom door closed, and after several attempts to get the suspect to open the door, Sterzer came out of the bathroom. 

While speaking with officers, the suspect reportedly admitted to being with the reporting party the previous evening but denied taking any items from the man’s residence. 

During a search of a backpack belonging to Sterzer, officers found a Louis Vuitton belt that matched the description of the one taken the previous evening, along with a gold watch, several Walmart gift cards and more than $600 in cash. 

Officers also recovered a number of prescription pills and a plastic baggie containing a crystalline substance consistent with methamphetamine, along with a second baggie that contained suspected heroin and several syringes. 

The report also states that after the items were recovered from the backpack, the suspect admitted to taking the belt, watch, glasses and other items from the reporting party’s truck. 

The Adult Probation and Parole agent went through the suspect’s cell phone and discovered messages relating to the sale of prescription pills, the same type that were later recovered from the backpack. 

That information, combined with the amount of pills recovered, led agents to believe that Sterzer was “distributing the pills for a profit,” the agent noted in the report.  

Sterzer was arrested and booked into Purgatory Correctional Facility facing multiple charges, including second-degree felony possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance. She also faces four third-degree felony charges that include one count of theft and two counts of possession of a controlled substance. She also faces two misdemeanor charges for possession of marijuana and paraphernalia. She also is being held on a probation violation.

Peterson was arrested on a probation violation issued out of Utah County in January on a forgery case filed in July of last year. 

Two months before the forgery case was filed, the suspect was charged with robbery in connection with a theft at Home Depot in Salt Lake City. The suspect reportedly took an item and as he sprinted towards the exit, pushed one employee to the ground and got into a scuffle with a second employee, according to court records.

He originally was charged with second-degree felony robbery, but pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of robbery in November of last year and was placed in a residential treatment program.

Both suspects remain in custody on probation holds.

This report is based on statements from court records, police or other responders 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. 

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2022, all rights reserved.

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