ALASKA COMPUTER STOLEN FROM BUSINESSadn.com | alaska : DNA links suspect to burglariesDNA links suspect to burglaries
DATABASE: Bloody glove, taste for soda place man at scenes, police say.

By KYLE HOPKINS
Anchorage Daily News

Published: December 19, 2005
Last Modified: December 19, 2005 at 04:17 AM


PALMER -- An expanded state DNA database and a burglary suspect's taste for soda pop helped state troopers identify one man they say committed a string of Valley burglaries in 2002 and 2003.


Saliva from cola bottles and soda cans, plus the fragment of a bloody glove, linked 28-year-old Shane Martin of Wasilla to several local break-ins, according to affidavits and other court records. In a region where property crimes are a common complaint among businesses, homeowners and builders, Martin is accused of stealing tens of thousands of dollars in goods.

Troopers say he took tools, cars, electronics and handguns. In one case, a Glock stolen from a Valley general contractor surfaced a year later in Anchorage, where police linked it to a homicide.

A grand jury in August indicted Martin on charges relating to five break-ins. The indictment also names a second defendant, 24-year-old Anthony Hanson, in one of the crimes. Other burglaries from the time period are still being investigated.

Hanson is wanted on warrants in Anchorage and Palmer, but Martin is jailed in Anchorage. Police arrested him when the neighbor of an auto shop made a surprising discovery early one morning in April.

The story of how authorities pinned so many Valley burglaries on Martin starts three years ago, when troopers in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough fielded reports of a baffling series of thefts.

"Basically, we were getting our butt kicked by these burglaries," said troopers Sgt. Dallas Massie.

On the morning of Oct. 29, 2002, troopers investigated a break-in at Pro Auto Service on the outskirts of Wasilla. Thieves had taken a 1975 Chevrolet Corvette and a Mazda pickup, along with more than $40,000 in automotive equipment, a generator and tools.

"All we got back were (the) cars," said shop owner Robert Erdman. He said the business closed for about two weeks after the burglary. Even after insurance payments, the burglars knocked Erdman for about $30,000, he said.

The thieves also snatched 24 plastic bottles of Pepsi products, troopers Investigator Curtis Vik wrote in an affidavit; investigators found an empty bottle of Mountain Dew in the Corvette when it was recovered, abandoned near Houston.

The bottle went to the state crime lab in Anchorage, the first step in a process of collecting potential DNA evidence.

Alaska expanded a law in 2003 to require people convicted of felonies, or any crime against a person, to submit a DNA sample in the form of a cheek swab.

Martin and Hanson would eventually end up in a database that checks crime scene evidence against a list of about 10,000 offenders. But investigators had little of that information at their fingertips three years ago. That would change.

A burglary at a business plaza along the Palmer-Wasilla Highway soon followed the auto shop break-in. The culprit or culprits again left something behind -- the bloodstained fragment of a blue latex glove.

Days later, a woman reported another burglary along the same stretch of highway at the office of general contractor Steve Norton Enterprises. Someone had entered a window, rummaged through drawers and took a laptop computer, a tool kit and other items, including a Glock 27 semi-automatic pistol and a .44-caliber Magnum revolver, court records indicate.