ST. GEORGE — A Washington County man was arrested on a fugitive warrant issued out of Nevada following a string of thefts and vehicle burglaries last year that spanned across three states in January 2021.
On Monday, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office was notified that a $30,000 fugitive warrant was issued out of Nevada against an Apple Valley man, 22-year-old Liam Leroy Colligan, and deputies arrested him later that day.
The warrant listed multiple charges filed in Clark County, Nevada, including five felony counts of burglary of a motor vehicle and one count of felony grand larceny. Colligan also faces a gross misdemeanor charge of injuring or tampering with a motor vehicle, according to the warrant issued by the Mesquite Township Justice Court on April 19.
The case was filed in October of last year, and when Cooligan reportedly failed to make one of his court appearances in Nevada, the warrant was issued for his arrest.
Mesquite Police Sgt. Wyatt Oliver told St. George News the charges were filed in connection with a string of vehicle burglaries reported in Mesquite from January to the first week of February. In all, he said, there were seven separate incidents that were combined into one case.
Colligan also was booked into jail following Monday’s arrest on a no-bail warrant issued out of 5th District Court in St. George, involving a 2021 case filed in January following a string of vehicle burglaries reported in Washington County around the same time period as the Nevada crimes.
Following Monday’s arrest, Colligan was booked into jail shortly after 8 p.m. on the fugitive warrant issued out of Nevada, as well as a no-bail warrant out of 5th District Court in St. George.
And on Tuesday, the Washington County Attorney’s Office filed the necessary paperwork outlining the suspect’s Nevada charges, which authorizes Utah to hold the defendant pending extradition proceedings.
In outlining the case, Oliver said the suspect reportedly broke into a number of vehicles as he traveled through Nevada, Arizona and Utah, which resulted in criminal cases filed in all three states.
According to court records filed in Washington County last year, the alleged crime spree ended when the suspect was arrested following a pursuit with a Bureau of Land Management ranger on Jan. 21, 2021.
The pursuit started in Arizona when a Mohave County Sheriff’s deputy became involved in a chase with the pickup Colligan was reportedly a passenger in, and once the chase continued into Utah, it was picked up by the BLM ranger that was soon joined by the Washington County Sheriff’s Office and other surrounding agencies.
The pursuit ended when the driver, later identified as Terrance Davis, pulled over and exited the vehicle, along with the passenger, Colligan. Both then fled the area on foot. The pair was apprehended a short while later and booked into jail in Washington County.
Officers later learned the pickup truck from which the suspects fled was reportedly stolen out of Bunkerville, Nevada, Oliver said, and court records also revealed that the license plates found on the truck had been stolen from a vehicle in LaVerkin.
Following the arrest, the pickup truck was towed to an impound yard in Hurricane. A search of the truck would later tie together a number of seemingly unrelated vehicle burglaries reported across Washington County during that same time period.
As the pursuit from Arizona into Utah was taking place, officers in LaVerkin were responding to a report of an overnight vehicle robbery of several bank and credit cards, an identification card and a Pokemon backpack.
Meanwhile, another break-in was reported later that day involving the overnight theft from a vehicle of an Everstart jump pack, a park pass and a pair of binoculars.
A third vehicle burglary was reported at around the same time in LaVerkin involving a car that was broken into in the parking lot of a local motel. The owner told police he was staying at the hotel while working on a remodel at a local gas station, and on the night of Jan. 21, someone broke into his vehicle and took several Milwaukee brand power tools labeled with the name of his employer’s company.
During the search of the truck at the impound yard in Hurricane, officers recovered a majority of the items reportedly taken from multiple vehicles, including a Utah driver’s license and a bank card belonging to one of the vehicle burglary victims.
When a Mohave County Sheriff’s deputy held up a Pokemon backpack, officers noticed it matched the one taken during the car burglary in LaVerkin. The pack also had the name of the owner on the item itself, as did many of the documents found inside.
Officers also recovered the jump pack, binoculars and the stolen license plate out of LaVerkin, in addition to a number of power tools valued at more than $1,500 that had the same identifying marks as the items taken from the vehicle parked at the hotel in LaVerkin.
Oliver said officers also recovered some of the property taken during the car burglaries in Mesquite, many of which were found at a campsite in Arizona, where Colligan had been staying with the co-defendant prior to the pursuit – nearly $1,700 worth of stolen property was recovered from the site.
The report also states that following the pursuit that spanned across two states, Liam was the focus of multiple investigations for crimes allegedly committed in Utah, Nevada and Arizona. Four days after the 2021 arrest, officers went to the jail to meet with the suspect, but when Colligan requested an attorney, the interview was terminated.
In addition to the charges filed in Mohave County related to the pursuit, the suspect also faced multiple charges in connection with the vehicle burglaries in Washington County, including one felony count of unlawful acquisition of a financial card and four misdemeanor counts of theft by receiving stolen property. The case was filed in 5th District Court in Utah and resulted in the no-bail warrant being issued.
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.