TribLIVE's Daily and Weekly email newsletters deliver the news you want and information you need, right to your inbox.
State police arrested a man after a Ford City woman told a trooper that he came into her house and used the bathroom before eating some food and covering up with a garbage bag on the back porch to nap.
Lawrence Robert Vail III, 29, of 200 block of Oak Avenue in Kittanning was charged with a felony county of criminal trespass along with drug possession and public drunkenness. He was being detained in the Armstrong County Jail in lieu of a $25,000 cash bond, according to court records.
An Aug. 23 preliminary hearing scheduled before District Judge J. Gary Decomo was canceled. A new hearing date has not been set, according to court records.
A trooper from the Kittanning station wrote in the criminal complaint charging Vail that he responded to a home in the 1500 block of Fifth Avenue shortly before 9 p.m. Aug. 1 after a woman called police to report that a man she didn’t know was on her property without permission.
The woman told the trooper that she walked around to the back of her house and saw a man, later identified as Vail, standing on the back porch with the door partially open, the complaint said.
She said she ran across the street to a gas station to call 911 after the man refused orders to get off the property, according to the complaint.
The woman said she walked around her house and went in the front door, where she noticed that the door to the bathroom was closed, police said.
She told police that she ordered Vail to get out of her house multiple times after he came out of the bathroom, the complaint said.
Vail again ignored her commands and instead went out on the back porch where he ate some food and then covered up with a black plastic garbage bag and laid down, the complaint said.
The trooper said he found Vail laying on the back porch and suspected he was under the influence of alcohol or drugs because he was unable to obey commands “and was not making sense with his words,” according to the complaint.
The trooper said Vail had two empty glassine bags in his backpack, one marked with dice and the other stamped with the image of crowns, the complaint said.
Tony LaRussa is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Tony by email at tlarussa@triblive.com or via Twitter .
Support Local Journalism and help us continue covering the stories that matter to you and your community.
TribLIVE's Daily and Weekly email newsletters deliver the news you want and information you need, right to your inbox.
© 2022 Trib Total Media | All Rights Reserved
Send Letter to the Editor
TribLIVE App - App Store
TribLIVE App - Google Play