NORWAY – Two squatters found living in a storage trailer on a dead-end dirt road were arrested Wednesday after the owner complained they refused to leave after he discovered them days earlier.
Barbara A. Holt, 41, and Timothy A. Smith, 39, bolted out of the back door and into the woods on French Road when Sgt. James Ventresca responded to the complaint.
He yelled at them to stop, he said, but they kept running a short way before he caught and handcuffed them They were taken to the Oxford County Jail in Paris.
Ventresca returned to the trailer, he said, and found evidence that it had been lived in for some time.
“We found a new Coleman stove, clothing, papers with their names, cupboards filled with food and cigarettes, etc.,” Ventresca wrote in his report. It was rough living, though, because there is no plumbing or electricity at the remote site, he said.
French Road, which is not completely accessible by motor vehicle, runs between Shedd and Wiley roads, which are off Route 118 near the Waterford town line.
Holt, who told jail officials she is homeless, is charged with theft by unauthorized taking and receiving stolen property, and is not to return to the trailer, the officer said. There are also four warrants of arrest issued for her: One from Androscoggin County Superior Court in Auburn for failure to appear on a charge or forgery; and three from Oxford County Superior Court in Paris for failure to appear on charges of forgery and burglary, a jail official said.
Smith, who gave jailers an address of 296 Main St., Norway, is charged with theft by unauthorized taking or transfer and receiving stolen property, and is to stay away from the trailer, Ventresca said. He was taken to Androscoggin County Jail in Auburn on Thursday on a warrant for failure to appear on an assault. A jail officer said Smith was released on $340 bail at 6:30 p.m. Thursday.
“The owner didn’t want to press charges, he just wanted them to be removed from the property,” Ventresca said, explaining why the two were not charged with trespassing.
The storage trailer owner, who was not identified by police, reported that on Monday he checked his trailers, camp and other buildings on French Road and found two people living there without his permission, according to the police report. He asked them to leave but they did not.
“They didn’t appear to me to be packing up or anything,” Ventresca said Thursday by phone.
A neighbor told police that the couple had been living in the trailer for about a month.
The theft and receiving stolen property charges against Holt and Smith stem from a red 10-speed bike found outside the storage trailer and identified as one reported missing by a Main Street apartment dweller earlier Wednesday.
The bicycle owner asked police to press charges, he said, and was pleased to be reunited with her bike.
“She was ecstatic,” Ventresca said.
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