WELD – A two-day hunt for a Florida man considered armed and dangerous by police ended peacefully Wednesday morning when he unwittingly drove up a road where two Franklin County deputies live.

Franklin County Detective Tom White said Melvin Vitko, 51, a career criminal with an extensive criminal history across the country, was boxed in on Center Hill Road by Deputies Heidi Gould and David Rackliffe.

White said police had previously notified people in Weld to watch for Vitko’s truck, a red 1998 Dodge Dakota pickup with Florida plates.

On Wednesday morning, police were about to start a search of Byron Road via helicopter when a Center Hill Road resident spotted the truck and alerted them. Gould and Rackliffe, who was out sick with the flu, were contacted and immediately sent out.

Gould arrested Vitko, initially charging him with felony burglary and theft by unauthorized taking or transfer regarding a Weld break-in.

Vitko also was charged on a 1998 Piscataquis County warrant charging burglary. White said Vitko is wanted by Florida police, who only knew him by his nickname of “Grumpy.” They accuse him of stealing the truck he was driving.

Maine State Police Trooper Kyle Tilsley also charged Vitko with burglary and theft regarding three camp break-ins last week in Byron. In one, five rifles valued at between $4,000 and $5,000 were taken.

Vitko is being held on $50,000 cash bail at Franklin County Jail in Farmington. His first court appearance will be today before Judge Valerie Stanfill in Farmington District Court.

By late Wednesday afternoon, Tilsley had recovered all five guns.

“This is so good news,” Melissa Young of Byron said of Vitko’s arrest and recovery of the guns, which belong to her fiance, James Ramey. They were stolen on Feb. 12 during break-ins at one of three Weld Road camps in Byron.

White said two guns were sold in Bethel and one in Phillips; the other two were found inside the truck cab with Vitko. One was loaded.

“He was a concern to us because we knew he was armed and dangerous, and so we were pretty careful,” White said.

More charges in Maine and New Hampshire and down the East Coast to Florida are pending as police work to unravel Vitko’s travels, White said.

“He admitted to 15 burglaries. … He’s probably done 500, but we won’t be able to prove most of them,” White said. “We’ll reach out to other law enforcement agencies. … I’m sure this guy has done hundreds of burglaries, so it’s just a question of how far we can go with it. We’ll be busy for weeks with this one.”

White said Vitko, who served prison time in California, Texas and Florida, was released in July 2007 from a Florida penitentiary after serving 8 years on burglary and theft convictions. Vitko has also been convicted for other burglaries, aggravated assaults and gun charges.

“He’s also a tattoo artist and has prison tattoos on him, so he looks like a pretty bad guy. He said he was heavily involved in methamphetamine and crack cocaine in Florida and wanted to escape that and he had lived at one time in New Hampshire, so he came up this way, only he kept going on into Maine. He was pawning and selling stuff and using it to live on,” White said.

Besides Bethel, Byron, Phillips and Weld, police say that Vitko was in Bingham, Dover-Foxcroft, and Moscow, and St. Johnsbury, Vt.

White said Vitko told them about a woman’s diamond engagement ring that he’d taken from a Weld home and sold to a pawnshop in St. Johnsbury. The jewelry has been recovered.

Tilsley said police in Milford and Temple, N.H., also consider Vitko of interest regarding crimes there.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” Tilsley said of the Maine crimes.

Regarding Vitko’s capture, White credited good police work and the lucky break from the Weld resident who spotted the truck and contacted police.