HURRICANE – A LaVerkin man was arrested Sunday for burglary with additional theft charges added Monday, after a couple returned home from out of town to find their Jeep had been stolen and used during a burglary.

Officers responded to a report of a burglary in progress Sunday on the 500 North block of Main Street in Hurricane. When they arrived on scene, a witness stated he saw a vehicle parked outside the gate of a business and a man who turned and ran when he saw the witness, Hurricane City Police Officer Ian Atkinson said in a probable cause statement filed in support of the arrest.

Police later identified the running man as 39-year-old Brad Donald Brooke, of LaVerkin, when he returned to the parked vehicle. Brooke told police he was “just lifting hoods on cars looking for parts,” Atkinson wrote in the statement.

As officers searched the area where Brooke was seen running, they spotted several vehicles that appeared to have been broken into, along with Brooke’s shoe prints in the mud, according to the statement.

Around Brooke’s footprints, officers located four car speakers and a CD player which had been taken from a vehicle.

In speaking with Brooke, Atkinson said, he admitted he knew he was trespassing.

Brooke was arrested and booked into the Washington County Purgatory Correctional Facility on Sunday. He was charged with a third-degree felony for burglary.

On Monday, officers responded to a report of a stolen vehicle on the 300 West block of 850 North in LaVerkin. A woman told police she and her husband went out of town and when they returned, they discovered their Jeep had been stolen, LaVerkin City Police Officer Dennis Wolsleger said in a probable cause statement filed in support of Brooke’s theft charges.

The woman said she and her husband were the only two people with keys to the vehicle and that she didn’t know how anyone was able to take the vehicle unless they did something to it, the statement said.

Officers then informed the woman that Brooke had been arrested while in possession of the Jeep the day before, and the Jeep was subsequently impounded by Hurricane City Police.

The woman said she didn’t give permission for Brooke to take the Jeep and requested charges be pursued against him, Wolsleger said in the statement.

Brooke received an additional second-degree felony theft of a motor vehicle charge for taking the Jeep.

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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