Mountlake Terrace Police recently determined that a case of burglary and vandalism earlier this year were the result of a husband finding out about his wife’s affair with their neighbor.

Back in January of this year, MLT police responded to a report of a burglary that had occurred near 238th St SW and 55th Ave W. The initial investigation revealed that someone had entered the home through the rear slider and damaged several items. Items found missing from the home were a $5,000 cat, a rifle and a shotgun. Additionally, the tires on the victims cars had been slashed. Because the tires had been slashed the word “fag” was etched it to the large screen TV police believed that the burglar may have known the victim.

As MLT PD detectives continued to investigate it was revealed that the victim was having an affair with a neighbor, a 26 year-old married woman. Recently the husband had found out about the affair and had angry words with the victim. Detectives questioned the suspected husband and wife extensively at that time, but were unable to obtain solid evidence connecting either of them to the crime.

Several weeks later detectives received an anonymous letter saying that the wife of the suspect was being mistreated by her husband and that the husband had forced her to slash the tires of the victim’s car to show that she loved the husband. Days later the suspect’s wife had filled out a written statement at a neighboring police agency for an unrelated matter. Detectives were able to obtain this statement and compared the handwriting with the anonymous letter and found that it had been written by the wife.

They then made contact with the wife who, after some questioning admitted to slashing the tires on the victims vehicle. She also implicated her husband in the burglary of our victim’s home.

The husband turned himself in to our detectives on Wednesday, June 29, 2011.

Photo by Tara Wellnitz via Flickr using a CC-BY-NC-ND license.