AUGUSTA — An Augusta woman arrested and charged in a Windsor burglary Friday told police she was involved in a theft from the site of quadruple-amputee veteran Travis Mills’ home, which is under construction in Manchester, according to a court document.

Tiffany Fitzpatrick, 26, of Augusta, was charged with two counts of burglary and one count of theft by unauthorized taking after a Maine State Police trooper said in a court document that she admitted to taking part in the two burglaries overnight Wednesday.

However, those charges were related to the Windsor theft. As of Monday, she hadn’t been charged in connection with the Manchester theft. She made an initial video appearance in Kennebec County Superior Court on Monday afternoon.

In Trooper Elisha Fowlie’s affidavit, Fitzpatrick said she and a 36-year-old Sidney man drove around the area in a friend’s car that night, targeting two construction sites on Pond Road in Manchester and on Ridge Road in Windsor. At both sites, tools were reported stolen early Thursday.

Fitzpatrick told Fowlie that she and the man stole tools at the Manchester site, including a new generator. After that, she said the two went to the Windsor site. As she acted as a lookout, she said the man stole the air compressor, which she helped him load into the car.

Chief Deputy Ryan Reardon of the Kennebec County Sheriff’s Office said the man hasn’t been charged and is “someone that we need to talk to in reference to this investigation.”

Advertisement

Kennebec County District Attorney Maeghan Maloney said she expects charges against Fitzpatrick in the Manchester theft and the man in both thefts to come within days, after her office gets more information from the sheriff’s office, which is investigating the Mills theft.

Stolen items from the two sites showed up in pawnshops, according to Fowlie, who was investigating the Windsor burglary when he learned that items missing from Manchester were also being pawned. Five more people were summoned for that.

The sheriff’s office originally estimated the value of the tools at between $10,000 and $15,000, but Reardon said Monday the estimated value was $8,000. The compressor stolen from the Windsor site was valued at $800, Fowlie wrote.

The generator was one of the items reported stolen from the Pond Road site, where two foundations are building a state-of-the-art “smart home” for Mills, the 27-year-old veteran, his wife and young daughter. He said Friday that he was angry about the theft and would “make sure I’m at the arraignment so they can see who they stole from.”

The retired Army staff sergeant, one of only five quadruple amputees from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, was wounded by an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan in 2012. He has said his family, living in Texas now, expects to move into the home as early as June.

On Friday, the head contractor on the site said the theft only delayed construction about three hours, since tools were recovered from an Augusta pawnshop and Hammond Lumber Co. donated other tools, including nail guns, necessary to continue work.

Advertisement

Michael Shepherd can be contacted at 370-7652 or at:

mshepherd@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @mikeshepherdme

 


Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.