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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Sure enough, those boots in fireplace weren’t Santa’s

Adriana Janovich Yakima Herald-Republic

YAKIMA – When Sally Shelton awoke to a ruckus in her house late Thursday, she was shocked to find a man’s shoes poking out of her basement fireplace – and they didn’t look like Santa Claus boots.

Police say it turns out the man was trying to hide from officers after they began chasing a stolen yellow tow truck. An officer took special note of the truck because it was dragging a Dumpster-like garbage container.

The driver ditched the vehicle after police called off the pursuit due to icy roads. Police said he ran to Shelton’s home, breaking in through an outside gate and the back door before trying to hide behind two steel doors in front of the fireplace.

It was just after midnight when Shelton, 48, was awakened by the noise and emerged from her basement bedroom expecting to see her 18-year-old son. She yelled, “What the hell are you doing?”

That’s when she said the intruder crawled out of the fireplace and told her to “shut up.”

“I backed into the bedroom, locked the door, grabbed my rifle and called 911,” Shelton said Friday in a telephone interview. “I was scared to death. I said to myself, if he comes in here, I’m going to shoot him.”

In a matter of minutes, she heard Yakima police break through the front door, yelling at the man to get down on the floor. By that time, he was in the living room.

“I put my gun away and came out with my hands up because I didn’t want the police to think I was with the guy,” Shelton said.

“I said, ‘I’m the owner.’ There must have been seven cops in my living room, and he was laying on my living room floor.”

Police set up a perimeter and were awaiting a K-9 unit when Shelton’s call came into dispatch.

Police arrested the fireplace intruder, a 25-year-old Yakima man. He was taken to Yakima County jail on charges of theft of a motor vehicle, residential burglary and attempting to elude police.

And what did Shelton’s 18-year-old son – who occupies an upstairs bedroom – think of his mother’s brush with danger?

“He slept through the whole thing,” she said.