WILLMAR -- An 18-year-old Pennock teen pleaded guilty Tuesday to a felony charge of burglary-liability for crimes of another for her role in a Norway Lake bait shop burglary.
Marissa Ann Campbell entered the plea in Kandiyohi County District Court. As part of a plea agreement, two other felony charges for theft and property damage will be dismissed. She also agreed to pay restitution and will be sentenced June 27.
Campbell was one of three teens charged in the case. Steven Jon Lynn Horton, 18, of Sunburg, was sentenced Friday to 90 days at Prairie Lakes Youth Programs, probation to his 19th birthday and was ordered to pay $1,939 in restitution. Tesla Marie Gilbertson, 16, of New London, is scheduled for a court trial on June 10 on two felony charges for aiding an offender and a misdemeanor for receiving stolen property.
Felony matters against 16- and 17-year-olds are public record.
The charges were filed after Kandiyohi County Sheriff's deputies were called Feb. 3 to the Last Chance Bait Shop in rural New London. The owners showed deputies footprints in the snow near where windows were pried open. A total of 490 packs of cigarettes, valued at $1,914, were missing from the store. A few days later, the owners once again contacted the sheriff's office after receiving information from a person who purchased cigarettes from a juvenile female known to law enforcement.
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A detective with the sheriff's office interviewed a number of teens, including Campbell, who said the group was at Horton's home and talked of burglarizing a business, which some members of the group did in the middle of the night. Campbell told the detective that she drove two others to the bait shop and waited for them to return, which they did with bags of cigarettes. She also said she drove Horton and another member of the group back to the shop after that person realized he lost his cell phone during the crime. She said that her accomplices returned with bags and boxes of cigarettes, which they divided up later.
Later, deputies searched one of the teen's bedrooms and found cigarettes stashed there. The teen admitted to taking them from the bait shop. After she was interviewed, Campbell turned over a bag of cigarettes, 63 packs and a 10-pack carton, to law enforcement.
The owners of the bait shop later informed law enforcement that the bait tanks had been damaged during the burglary as the teens walked over them. The product to repair the tanks was no longer manufactured, so the entire system would need to be replaced. The total cost of damages to the system, the building and for stolen merchandise was $10,483.53.
