A man accused of burglarizing six Lewis County businesses in February 2023 has been booked into the Lewis County Jail.
Gary Michael Moyer, 39, of Port Orchard, was booked into the Lewis County Jail at 6:30 a.m. on Dec. 19 following a transfer from Coyote Ridge Corrections Center, where he was serving a 23-year jail sentence for burglaries charged in Kitsap County.
His release date for that case is in 2037, according to Lewis County court personnel.
In Lewis County, Moyer faces a total of 14 charges: six counts of second-degree burglary, two counts of second-degree theft, three counts of third-degree theft, one count of theft of a motor vehicle, one count of second-degree malicious mischief and one count of second-degree identity theft.
Moyer is being held in the Lewis County Jail until his local case is resolved. If he posts the $1 million bail set in that case, he will be returned to Department of Corrections custody.
A hearing for Moyer to plead guilty and be sentenced in the Lewis County case is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 2.
Moyer’s co-defendant, Stephanie Marie Roller, 34, of Port Orchard, was sentenced Feb. 12 to about 2.5 years in prison for her involvement in the burglaries.
Roller and Moyer were accused of burglarizing five businesses on Feb. 19, 2023, and burglarizing a sixth business sometime between Feb. 17 and Feb. 21, 2023, according to court documents.
The first burglary was reported at Lewis County Coffee Co.’s stand on Jackson Highway in Chehalis at approximately 4:02 a.m. on Feb. 19, according to court documents and previous Chronicle reporting. Two suspects, a male in dark clothing and a female with blonde hair, stole the stand’s safe and money bag, containing at least $1,000 in currency, as well as the business’s delivery van, tools and other items.
The second burglary was reported at Lifetime Granite on Jackson Highway in Chehalis, where security footage showed a blue SUV driven by a blonde female push its front bumper through the main doors. A male suspect then exited the vehicle, kicked through the interior doors and left with “small items in his hands,” according to court documents.
The third burglary was reported at O'Reilly Auto Parts on Johnson Road in Lewis County where the burglars pried open the front doors with a blue crowbar and stole the cash drawer, which the store manager noted “had been bolted to a shelf,” according to court documents.
The fourth burglary was reported at Encore Auto on Mellen Street in Centralia, where the door had been pried open, a desk in the office had been rummaged through and multiple items, including a laptop, were stolen. Security footage showed a Lewis County Coffee Co. van park in the business’s parking lot at 4:44 a.m. and a male step out and pry the door open. The male reportedly exited the building carrying a laptop and got into a Mini Cooper.
The Mini Cooper then left the parking lot, followed by the Lewis County Coffee Co. van.
The Mini Cooper was later found abandoned on Interstate 5 in Chehalis, according to court documents. The stolen Lewis County Coffee Co. van, as well as the empty stolen safe, were found in the parking lot of a Chehalis business later in the day. Security footage determined that the van was abandoned at approximately 5:06 a.m., according to court documents.
The fifth burglary was reported at H&R Block on Harrison Avenue in Centralia, where the back door was pried open and a file cabinet was stolen, according to court documents.
A sixth burglary was reported two days later, on Feb. 21, at the Edward Jones office on Harrison Avenue in Centralia.
The reporting party advised that the office closed for a three-day weekend on Feb. 17 and, when staff returned on Feb. 21, they found a tool mark on the back door and found two checkbooks were missing from an employee’s desk.
By examining the security footage from the business the Lewis County Coffee Co. van was left at, Chehalis detectives were able to identify the GMC Blue Yukon used by the suspects, according to court documents.
On Feb. 22, 2023, the Eugene, Oregon Police Department and the Department of Homeland Security located the vehicle and arrested two suspects, identified as Roller and Gary Moyer, 38, of Port Orchard, following a pursuit and SWAT operation in the Eugene area, according to court documents.
“As of March 13, 2023, they were listed as suspects in over 60 burglaries spanning at least nine different jurisdictions,” the Lewis County Prosecutor’s Office states in charging documents filed against Moyer and Roller on Aug. 21, 2023.
