Early this morning, City of Mountlake Terrace Police arrested two burglary suspects found hiding inside the old Evergreen Elementary School in the 6000 block of 237th Street Southwest.

Officers responded at around 4:20 a.m. after an intrusion alarm indicated the suspects were inside one of the vacant buildings. Officers assisting from the Cities of Edmonds and Brier Police Departments surrounded the school site, and with the help of the Edmonds K-9 Officer, the building was searched and the suspects were located hiding in a custodial / boiler room area.

The suspects, a 49-year-old Mountlake Terrace man and a 34-year-old woman from Kenmore were taken into custody without incident. Detectives interviewed the suspects who admitted that they were responsible for the earlier burglaries. The male suspect told the detectives that during one of the burglaries they had spent hours inside collecting scrap only to have it stolen by someone else when they went to get their vehicle. The suspects also told the detectives that they had been taking the scrap metal to a local recycler for cash.

Alarms had been installed in the vacant buildings after the demolition company working on the site reported a series of burglaries in which several thousands of dollars worth of scrap metal was stolen.

The suspects were booked at the Snohomish County jail on the burglary charges.