Another suspect enters guilty plea in home invasion

Another suspect pleaded guilty Thursday in a violent home-invasion robbery last October that recaptured the public spotlight this week when one of robbers absconded from a furlough.

Justice Alan Erickson, 22, pleaded guilty Thursday to first-degree burglary and conspiracy to commit first-degree burglary while police continued to search for one of his accomplices, Jeremy Arnold.

Arnold, 28, pleaded guilty March 31 to various felonies, including two counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree robbery in the incident involving Erickson. Arnold was granted a one-week furlough, starting May 6. He was married on May 12, and then disappeared.

Arnold and Erickson, whose nickname is Crazy, were among five people charged in the Oct. 6, 2004, armed invasion of a home at 3124 E. Fairview that was occupied by four adults and three children. Court documents indicate the suspects expected to get money and drugs from one of the occupants. All but one of the five who were charged have now pleaded guilty.

Those who have accepted plea bargains are Arnold, Erickson, 24-year-old Eric James Vincent Singleton and 22-year-old Tia N. Thompson.

Thompson pleaded guilty last week to residential burglary and second-degree robbery and was sentenced to six months in jail.

Singleton, who had been charged with eight counts of first-degree robbery, pleaded guilty last month to one count. He faces a standard range of three to four years in prison when he is sentenced Monday.

Deandre S. Gaither, 25, is charged with first-degree robbery and first-degree burglary. He is wanted on a warrant authorizing a $500,000 bail.

According to court documents, Thompson knocked on the door of the home on East Fairview about 9:30 p.m. and said she needed a telephone to call a tow truck. While occupants Venita Zamora and Maria Rodriguez were giving Thompson a telephone three men with guns rushed into the house.

One of the invaders forced Zamora, Richard Rodriguez and two children – ages 7 and 8 – onto the floor of a bathroom at gunpoint, according to a police affidavit. The other forced Maria Rodriguez and her brother, Juan Luis Martinez, into a bedroom and bound them with plastic ties. When Martinez got his hands free, his captor hit him twice on the head with a pistol and re-tied Martinez and Maria Rodriguez with a telephone cord.

A third child, who was sleeping, was not disturbed.

Another robber entered the bedroom where Martinez and Maria Rodriguez were being held and threatened them by pointing the beam of his pistol’s laser sight at their heads, police said.

The thieves left with jewelry and a few hundred dollars in cash.

Thompson later told police she lived with Singleton, and was acquainted with Arnold, who directed her to perform the ruse that got the robbery victims to open their door.

Thompson told investigators that Erickson – the man with the laser-sighted pistol – and Singleton entered the victims’ home along with a man she knew as Trub. Investigators later identified Trub as Gaither. Arnold, also armed, waited outside as a lookout and monitored a police scanner, according to Thompson.

Investigators said Thompson told them her co-defendants expected to get drugs and money from Martinez.

According to the police affidavit, Arnold’s girlfriend at the time, Krystle Everette, told investigators that Arnold told her he decided to rob Martinez because he had successfully robbed Martinez of $50,000 in the past.

Everette said Arnold gave her the names of two other people who acted as lookouts during the robbery, but there is no indication from court records that those two, a man and his girlfriend, were charged.