WATERVILLE — Her dog started barking furiously.
It was 1:45 a.m. Friday, New Year’s Day, and the woman awoke in her second-floor bedroom at 6 May St. to hear a person walking around on the first floor of her apartment.
“She went to the top of the stairs leading to the first floor” and saw a man walking up the stairs, Waterville Deputy police Chief Charles Rumsey said Monday. “She yelled to him to leave and said she was calling the police.”
The intruder promptly left and police arrived. They found something curious. There were no footprints in the snow anywhere around her building, although it had just snowed.
The woman explained to police that her apartment at 6 May St. and an adjacent apartment at 4 May St. share a common basement, and the door leading from her apartment to the basement was secured by a small metal latch resembling a gate lock.
Police went down into the basement, walked through it and knocked on the door to 4 May St.
There, they found Alexander Estela, 25, who had been staying with the people who rent the apartment, Rumsey said.
Waterville police Detective Dave Caron arrived and talked to the victim and Estela, applied for and got a search warrant for 4 May St. Police then scoured that apartment.
“They found a laptop computer stolen from the victim’s house and found a small amount of cash stolen from the residence also,” Rumsey said.
Police arrested Estela at about 8 a.m. Friday and charged him with one count of class B felony burglary and class E misdemeanor theft, he said.
Police arrested another person in the 4 May St. apartment — Patrick Libby, 37, of 293 Corinna Road, St. Albans — who was wanted on an outstanding warrant out of Somerset County for failure to appear on a charge of fishing without a license, Rumsey said.
Estela, who listed his address as 4 May St., couldn’t post his $1,750 cash bail and was taken to Kennebec County jail in Augusta, Rumsey said.
He is scheduled to appear in Kennebec County Superior Court March 14. Libby, who also was taken to the jail, is scheduled to appear in Waterville District Court Feb. 10.
Amy Calder — 861-9247
Twitter: @AmyCalder17
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