Local News

A 32-year-old California man has been ordered held in jail for investigation of first-degree burglary and taking indecent liberties after he allegedly climbed through a window of an apartment on Capitol Hill and crawled into bed with a Seattle couple, taking liberties with the woman as she slept early on New Year’s Day.

A King County District Court judge set bail at $20,000 for the man, described in court documents as a Stanford University student who was in town visiting his parents for the holidays. He was booked into jail on Thursday.

A probable-cause statement said the couple went to bed in their apartment on Bellveue Avenue East around 2 a.m. Wednesday.  At some point after they had fallen asleep, the documents say the intruder – a complete stranger — apparently removed a screen from their living-room window and hoisted himself five feet up and into their apartment.

The man removed his tennis shoes and climbed into bed, positioning himself behind the woman, the statement says. She told police she awoke as he sexually touched her, protested and woke her husband in the process, according to the statement.

The husband got into an “altercation” with the intruder, who dropped his driver’s license during the scuffle. The intruder fled shoeless through the open window, but not before the husband snapped his photograph with a cellphone, according to the court document.

On Thursday, a Seattle police detective called the man, who said he had gone to a New Year’s Eve party in the South Lake Union neighborhood and was very intoxicated that night, according to the statement. He said he didn’t remember anything between leaving the party and waking up the next morning in his  parents’ apartment, which is about four blocks from the Bellevue Avenue East address, the statement says. The court documents say he mentioned to the officer he was missing his shoes and license.