A Eureka man has been charged with eight felonies for a string of burglaries and a fire that nearly destroyed a county building in October.
Eric Haas, 20, confessed to the crimes after investigators questioned him following two recent burglaries at a church and a thrift store. Haas has been charged with seven counts of felony burglary and one count of felony arson. Investigators believe he acted alone. His initial bond was set at $300,000 and his case will be handled by Lincoln County District Court in Libby.
The burglaries and fire had brought unease to a small town unaccustomed to crime. Bo Pitman, a deputy with the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office and a lead investigator, said the town is ready to move on.
“This is good for the community,” Pitman said.
Just after midnight on Oct. 25, a Eureka police officer noticed smoke coming from the North Lincoln County Annex building in the northern outskirts of Eureka. The officer called in the fire and crews responded quickly, but not before the smoke damaged every room in the building.
The room where the fire started, a judge’s office, was thoroughly damaged, with the desk reduced to ashes. Stormy Langston, the justice of peace and city judge, had been receiving phone threats related to a contentious case she was overseeing. At the time, she felt the fire might have been connected. Of the multiple break-ins that evening, only Langston’s office was burned.
But authorities say Haas was seeking only cash. Upon finding no money in Langston’s office, they speculated that he became frustrated and started the fire. Pitman said Haas lost his job in August and has a drug habit.
“At this point in time, I have not been able to make the connection between the threats the court was receiving from multiple people in the July and August time frame,” Pitman said.
Investigators were initially led astray when someone reported that a former friend had admitted to starting the fire at Langston’s office. That report proved to be untrue and authorities have not been able to get in touch with the caller to ask him why he made that false statement.
“For about three weeks, we were going in the wrong direction,” Pitman said.
After a series of interviews, the case came to a standstill as investigators waited for crime lab results. But then in early December, Pitman spotted Haas standing outside a thrift store in sub-zero temperatures after midnight. Upon questioning, Haas said he was waiting for somebody.
“It just seemed odd to me,” Pitman said. “He could have been in the Eureka sports pub or inside somewhere.”
The next morning Pitman found out that the thrift store had been burglarized, along with a church. Pitman brought Haas in for an interview. Haas confessed to the thrift store and church burglaries. But Pitman noticed that the shoes Haas wore during the interrogation matched the footprints from the scene of one of the October break-ins. Haas then confessed to the October crimes.
“We knew that the arson and burglaries were connected,” Pitman said.