Police Guard Recovering Bulgarian Burglary Suspect Bitten By Police Dog Won’t Leave Hospital For At Least Two Weeks

It probably will be at least two weeks before authorities can transfer a Bulgarian mountain man here to face burglary charges in Snohomish County.

Mincio Donciev, 67, is still hospitalized for treatment of severe bite wounds to his legs received in a confrontation with a police dog during his March 2 arrest. He was in satisfactory condition at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where he remains under armed guard.

Donciev is cooperating with detectives investigating dozens of burglaries committed over more than a decade at two housing developments near Darrington, sheriff’s spokeswoman Jan Jorgensen said Tuesday. Donciev is suspected of committing the burglaries while living in nearby woods.

The Bulgarian appears to be enjoying the attention and agreed to be photographed by detectives Monday, Jorgensen said.

He’s not expected to return to Snohomish County in the immediate future, said Jim Townsend, the county’s chief criminal deputy prosecutor.

“I’m hearing we are still two weeks out,” Townsend said.

Donciev is charged with two counts of residential burglary. Townsend said he could face additional burglary charges, as well as charges for the alleged assault on a police dog and for being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm. Donciev was armed with two handguns and three knives when he was arrested, authorities say.

Last week, Donciev told detectives he’d spent 12 years in the mountains near Darrington. An escaped murderer in his homeland, he said he has no wish to return there, Jorgensen said.

In Bulgaria, Donciev was convicted of attempted murder in 1954, for which he served five years in prison, and of murder in 1966. He was serving a 20-year sentence for the murder when he escaped from a labor camp in 1970, Jorgensen said.

The statute of limitations in the latest case expired in 1992 and he is no longer sought by Bulgarian authorities.

He entered the United States in 1982 with a valid resident permit, and was living in Seattle by 1985. He vanished that year after pleading guilty to manufacture of an incendiary device in an attempt to blow up the home of a woman he had lived with. A warrant for his arrest to serve nine months in that case is still pending.