Moneta burglar is captured

STEPHANIE KLEIN-DAVIS | The Roanoke Times

Dani Byerly (above) put up wanted posters of Kean Montgomery, 28, of Moneta around Mariners Landing after she and her husband, Mike, surprised some people who had entered their Smith Mountain Lake home on Dec. 18.

Armed with a handgun, a neighbor detained two burglary suspects at the scene but a third man scoffed and walked away free.

He was identified later by the Bedford County Sheriff's Office as Moneta resident Kean Jule Montgomery, 28.

Montgomery remained on the lam for one month. He was captured in Huddleston on Jan. 18, just four days after Dani and Mike Byerly, among the homeowners he allegedly burglarized, distributed about 30 "wanted" fliers featuring Montgomery's mug shot in the vicinity of Moneta, Huddleston and elsewhere in Bedford County. The leaflets include relevant phone numbers to call in case of a sighting.

The fliers were Dani's idea; Mike described her as tenacious.

"[Montgomery] was arrested last night at a restaurant near Smith Mountain Lake," said Sheriff Mike Brown in a Jan. 19 email. "He attempted to escape but was captured after a foot chase."

Brown said the fliers played no role in Montgomery's capture, adding, "But we appreciated the gesture."

Montgomery faces five felony charges of breaking and entering and two of grand larceny.

On the morning of Dec. 18, a laptop and other electronics lay piled in a heap by the front door of the Byerlys' lake home. The kitchen cabinet doors stood wide open. Four liquor bottles dotted the kitchen counter.

A bag at the door contained salsa, chips and frozen pizza from the couple's supplies.

The pizza was still cold.

The Byerlys realized then that the thief or thieves who had burglarized their four-bedroom home at the Mariners Landing development in Bedford County likely planned to return.

The couple had driven down that day from their home in Powhatan because Mike planned to fertilize the lawn. They arrived at the house at Smith Mountain Lake at about 10:45 a.m.

Mike, who is 52, asked Dani, 51, to seek help from a neighbor while he called 911 and then pulled the couple's truck out of sight.

The neighbor and his son joined Mike. The neighbor toted a handgun. They waited in the cover of some trees.

They didn't wait long.

A car pulled in. Three people exited.

"We watched them walk in the door and then they turned right around and walked back out," Mike said.

Dani believes the trio saw her purse on the kitchen counter and realized someone had been inside the house.

"We briskly walked down there," Mike recalled.

The neighbor held the gun down by one of his legs.

"We said something like, 'You guys need to stay here. You're not going anywhere,'" Mike said.

Suspects Amanda Harding, 21, and Michael McDonald, 23, both of Huddleston, complied; Montgomery did not, according to both the sheriff's office and the Byerlys.

According to Mike, Montgomery said something like, "I don't have to put up with this. I'm out of here'" and mentioned using his cellphone to call someone to pick him up.

A few golfers who stopped and the neighbor's son followed Montgomery from a distance, until he was picked up by a vehicle and whisked away, Mike said.

A deputy arrived "amazingly" fast after the 911 call, he said, but was occupied with Harding and McDonald and could not pursue Montgomery.

On Jan. 9, the sheriff's office issued a news release announcing the arrests of several people alleged to have participated in break-ins in Bedford County in recent months. The release reported then that Harding and McDonald each had been charged with five counts of breaking and entering and one count of grand larceny. Both had bonded out of jail.

The Byerlys later determined that Harding also resided at Mariners Landing.

In early January 2011, thieves had broken into the Byerlys' residence in Powhatan while the couple was home. It was after midnight. The home's alarm system sounded and the burglars ran, Mike said. They were captured first by surveillance cameras and then shortly thereafter by law enforcement, he said.

That break-in to her Powhatan home badly shook Dani, who for months would not spend the night there alone.

Now, at Mariners Landing, the Byerlys are installing new deadbolt locks and a security system. Dani said she is unlikely to spend the night there alone for some time.

She said Wednesday night that she was relieved and grateful that Montgomery had been captured and now seems destined to be held accountable for his alleged break-in of their home and nine others in the vicinity.

Meanwhile, sheriff's Maj. Ricky Gardner said in an email last week that the department "discourages private citizens from conducting their own 'investigation' in an attempt to locate a wanted felon."