JAY — An attorney for a woman who reported a home invasion early Saturday on Macomber Hill Road said Thursday that she never said she would stop cooperating with investigators involved in the case.

Jay police Chief Larry White Sr. said Wednesday there were inconsistencies in the woman’s statements and she had stopped cooperating with police and retained an attorney.

The woman, who has not been identified, told police three masked men broke into her residence and set her husband’s truck on fire early Saturday morning.

“The woman whose home was broken into was terrified by this incident, and she did just come to see me,” attorney Walter Hanstein of Farmington said Thursday. “She only did so after cooperating fully with police officers for several days.”

She gave several detailed statements and answered all of the questions asked of her by police investigators, he said.

“Only after she believed that police questioning had become overly accusatory and upsetting did she come to see me,” Hanstein said. She never told the police she would not continue to cooperate in this investigation, he said.

“In fact, while I did contact the Jay Police Department to let officers know that I would be involved in the case, I made it clear that she would still be happy to answer any questions whatsoever that investigators had in the case. My only request was that those questions go through me,” Hanstein said.

“This woman has no incentive whatsoever to have made a false complaint in this matter and, as I told investigators (Wednesday), she is still willing to help provide any information she can. It is very unfortunate that law enforcement officials have chosen to characterize her understandable caution in the blatantly false way that it has,” he said.

White said Wednesday that his department and the state Fire Marshal’s Office are continuing the investigation into the incident.

dperry@sunjournal.com

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