In the early morning hours of Friday, May 5, several neighbors on Trailside Loop were rudely awoken.
“The doorbell rang at 1:20 and I didn't actually hear the doorbell as much as my dog's barking," Julie Strople said. "He kept barking and I finally looked at my Ring camera on my phone. And that's when I saw who this individual was that rang the doorbell.”
The Summit County Sheriff’s Department said they received multiple calls from residents on Trailside Loop reporting two suspicious men wearing ski masks knocking on doors.
Strople was one of those calls to 911.
“From our Ring camera pictures, it's definitely not one person because you can tell they have different coats on. And they just rang the doorbell and ran. They weren't like trying to open doors or anything,” said Strople.
But neither Strople, nor her neighbor Jason Bernstein, said they believe this was a simple case of innocent ding, dong, ditch.
“Last summer we had a bunch of kids coming around 9:30, 10 o'clock, who would ring the doorbell, and then they would sort of hang by the corner and they’d be like daring their friends," Bernstein said. "But it was crystal clear these were kids. They weren't wearing ski masks. It was between 9:30 and 10. And all they were doing was ringing the doorbell. And we were like, ‘Hey, we were kids once,' I get it. This was what looked like either high school-age men or adults, grown men, at 1:30 in the morning, in ski masks banging on the door.”
The sheriff’s department searched the area and even brought out heating-seeking drones but didn’t find anyone.
As deputies were patrolling the area, the Park City Police Department began a pursuit with a stolen vehicle. That chase ended in Kamas.
The sheriff’s department said the driver of the vehicle was wearing the same jacket as one of the men seen in the Ring video footage, however he was wearing different pants. Police found narcotics and burglary tools inside the vehicle.
While they couldn’t positively identify the man as one of the suspects in the Trailside Loop disturbance, they said they believe he is involved.
Police are still looking for the second suspect. He was last seen wearing blue pants, a dark hoodie and a light-colored ski mask.
