By Joe Smillie
Forks Forum Editor
A Pacific Pizza delivery car was found destroyed at the bottom of a ravine and a West End couple was arrested last week in connection with a burglary of the pizza place.
Tyeson Frank LaGambina, 24, is being held in the Clallam County jail in lieu of a $25,000 bond for charges of first-degree theft, second-degree burglary and theft of a motor vehicle.
Forks Police Administrator Rick Bart said last Wednesday, June 26, that Sarah Ellisyn Burnside, 18, also was arrested on the same charges but was later released.
Police believe the couple broke into Pacific Pizza in the early morning hours of June 10.
The pizza place was broken into through a broken window in the building’s rear. Owner Mark Raben told officers thieves had taken a safe with approximately $7,000 in cash, checks and credit card receipts and a 2004 Chevrolet Malibu used for deliveries.
Video surveillance from the night of the break-in showed a Volkswagen Jetta with a broken headlight parked across the street from Pacific Pizza near the time of the burglary.
After receiving word from a few locals saying the car resembled Burnside’s, Officer Todd Garcia interviewed her. She reportedly told him the right front headlight on her car is out.
Garcia then arrested her.
Burnside then told Garcia she and LaGambina had burned the credit card receipts found in the safe before driving the Malibu off a cliff up A Street.
On the morning of June 24, Bart said he received a phone call from a winded Officer Mike Rowley, who was at that moment chasing LaGambina through a field before arresting him on warrants from the state Department of Corrections.
After Garcia’s interview with Burnside, Bart drove about two miles up A Street, where he noticed the white Malibu at the bottom of a 50- to 60-foot forested hill off the roadside.
The Malibu was still in the police impound lot as evidence at press time.
Raben said he was unsure of the extent of the damage to the delivery vehicle, which was insured.
Raben added the burglars also took the keys to his business’ other delivery vehicle, which he now blocks with other vehicles after closing at night to prevent it also being stolen.
