Local man’s cross-country crime spree allegedly began here

Convicted bank robber charged with stealing vehicles in Burlington

A former Burlington man convicted on federal bank robbery charges last year is now facing theft charges in Racine County for allegedly stealing two vehicles at the start of what turned out to be a cross-country crime spree.

Eric A. Ebbers, 26, who is serving a sentence at a federal prison for robbing a bank in Hutchinson, Minn., on July 17, 2012, is now charged locally with stealing two vehicles in the Burlington area.

The thefts allegedly occurred on June 2, 2012, after Ebbers walked away from a halfway house for sex offenders in Racine because his supervised release on a 2008 sexual assault conviction was about to be revoked and he faced a return to prison.

Racine County Sheriff’s Department investigators tied Ebbers to the local crimes by matching DNA from blood found in one of the stolen – and subsequently crashed – vehicles to DNA collected as the result of his sexual assault conviction several years earlier.

According to the criminal complaint filed Tuesday, a Racine County sheriff’s deputy discovered a damaged Ford Expedition beyond a “Road Closed” sign at the end of Hoosier Creek Road in the Town of Burlington.

The deputy noted that it appeared the SUV had collided with the creek embankment because the vehicle’s airbags had deployed and the front end had extensive damage. The deputy found blood in the vehicle, indicating that driver may have been injured.

After checking the license plate, deputies discovered the Ford was owned by a man who lives on Wild Goose Lane. After speaking with the owner, authorities learned the vehicle had been parked in the owner’s driveway and had gone missing sometime between 3:30 a.m. and 7:30 a.m., the complaint alleges.

At the same time, deputies were investigating the report of the theft of a conversion van from a residence on Karcher Road – about a mile away from where the first vehicle was found.

Two days later the van was recovered in Kenosha. A witness told police that she saw the van coasting down the street apparently out of gas. She saw a man and a woman exit the van, remove some items from the back and leave on foot, the complaint alleges.

Police allegedly recovered a drug-smoking pipe and a note written on a bank withdrawal slip stating “All the money now. No problems” from the van.

DNA recovered from the drug pipe matched a DNA profile belonging to Lisa A. Larson, who is Ebber’s sister.

Investigators subsequently interviewed Larson in February of this year and, according to the complaint, she told them that Ebbers was driving the stolen van when he came to visit her the previous June. They spent the day drinking and doing drugs and were in the van together when it ran out of gas.

Larson, who has not been charged with any crimes related to the incident, told investigators she and her brother went their separate ways after that.

According to various news reports, Ebbers then left the area and headed west. According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Ebbers admitted robbing a bank of $8,100 in Lake City, Minn., on June 4, 2012, and holding up another bank in Gresham, Ore., on June 25, 2012, getting away with $3,251.

The fugitive crime spree came to an end July 17, 2012, when Ebbers and Erica L. Reeves of Selah, Wash., were arrested following the bank robbery in Hutchinson, Minn.

According to the Star Tribune, Ebbers took $5,770 from Citizen’s Bank and then fled in a car driven by Reeves. The car reached speeds above 100 mph as it was chased by a sheriff’s deputy.

Authorities eventually succeeded in stopping the vehicle using spiked stop sticks. According to the Star Tribune, Ebbers told Reeves he loved her before jumping out of the car and running into a cornfield.

Ebbers was eventually arrested about 15 miles away from the cornfield.  He was convicted last fall after pleading guilty in federal court to robbing the Hutchinson bank.

Ebbers made his initial appearance in Racine County Circuit Court Tuesday on two counts of operating a motor vehicle without owner’s consent. A preliminary hearing in that case is set for July 18.

Ebbers was convicted in 2008 of third-degree sexual assault for having sex with a 14-year-old girl without her consent for an incident that occurred in Burlington.