Larson Smith

Jenna LePage

Aaron Julian

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Three Billings residents are facing felony charges after they allegedly tried stealing items from a pair of Powell residences last week.

Powell police say Jenna LePage, Aaron Julian and Larson Smith were caught trying to burglarize a garage on the north side of town and were then captured on camera before stealing a couple low-dollar items on the south side Friday afternoon.

LePage, 26, faces a felony count of burglary for her alleged attempt to steal a fishing pole and bag on Beartooth Drive, while Julian, 27, and Smith, 30, are charged with aiding or abetting the crime. Julian is also charged with a misdemeanor count of theft, alleging he stole pieces of a gun case on Hamilton Way.

Charging documents say one of the victims tracked the three suspects down, which helped police arrest Smith, Julian and LePage within hours. All three remained in custody on Wednesday, with bonds ranging between $8,000 and $10,000.

Charging documents say it was around 4:30 p.m. Friday that a resident on Beartooth Drive saw a van parked outside her home. When she walked into her attached garage — which was open at the time — the resident found someone in a black hoodie and black pants trying to take a fishing pole bag off the garage’s rear wall. The suspect — later identified as LePage — retreated to the van and fled, while the resident called police.

According to an affidavit written by Sgt. Sean Alquist, it was less than an hour later that police got a call from a man in the 400 block of Hamilton Way, who reported that three people in a blue van had stolen items from his property.

The resident told police he was leaving for an errand when he noticed that the top of his hard gun case — attached to his four-wheeler in the driveway — had been removed. The man discovered that two keeper pins were missing, along with a snatch block, used to increase a winch’s pulling power. In total, the resident figured the missing items were worth about $30.

Alquist’s affidavit says the resident’s doorbell camera captured a van arriving at his home before the theft, so he decided to look for it. The resident told police he spotted the vehicle on East South Street, with someone in black — apparently LePage — looking around a parked vehicle. When the resident pulled up, he said he confronted Julian and demanded his stuff back. In response, Julian and Smith reportedly retrieved one of the missing keeper pins from the van and returned it to the resident before speeding away. The resident called police at 5:22 p.m., providing a detailed description of the suspects and their Montana license plate number.

Just before 6 p.m. Friday, Detective Chris Wallace spotted the van on Wyoming Avenue, with Smith alongside it, carrying a large red gas can. As the officer approached, Smith dropped the gas “and was hurriedly rounding the vehicle to enter the passenger side,” Wallace later recounted in an application for a search warrant. However, Wallace ordered the three occupants to show their hands, detained them and began asking questions.

“Smith did not have any idea why I would detain him … Smith stated they were only in the area to fish,” Wallace wrote. The detective noted that Smith was wearing a cowboy hat with a couple of fish hooks while there were fishing poles sticking out of a large carrier atop the van. 

LePage generally told police the same thing, the affidavit says, saying that they had only come to Powell to fish.

“LePage denied being on any property she should not have been,” Wallace wrote.

Despite that, the victims from Beartooth Drive and Hamilton Way later arrived and positively identified the suspects as the people who’d been on their properties.

After obtaining a search warrant for the van, police also found the other missing keeper pin inside.

Powell Police Lt. Matt McCaslin said the department hasn’t received any other reports of stolen items from Friday or in the days since the arrest.

Beyond the personal assistance of the Hamilton Way resident, McCaslin said the footage from the man’s doorbell surveillance camera played a key role in the arrests — noting that similar incidents in the past haven’t ended the same way.

“When we have car burglaries, we usually will have a whole rash of them … and then they stop,” with the suspects sometimes getting away, McCaslin said.

That’s one reason why he encourages residents to secure their possessions.

“So many times these are crimes of opportunity, and when they [criminals] see an unlocked vehicle, open garage door, things just setting out on a four-wheeler, things like that, they’re going to take that opportunity and jump on it,” McCaslin said.

Julian, Smith and LePage have all been appointed public defenders to represent them in court, with preliminary hearings tentatively scheduled for Friday afternoon in Park County Circuit Court.