UW students capture intruder

Members of the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity at the University of Washington tackled an intruder in their foyer early Tuesday, possibly ending a string of burglaries and early-morning sightings that had the entire house on edge since the beginning of the school year.

Turns out the man they held until Seattle police arrived has a long history of burglarizing fraternity houses: Since 2000, he's been convicted five times after being found inside five different fraternities, according to court records.

The man, 44-year-old Moises Madrid, was first arrested in April 2000 after members of Pi Kappa Phi detained him in their basement. Since then, Madrid has been tackled or detained by young men in four other fraternities along Greek Row and held for police, the court records show.

Madrid, arrested Tuesday on suspicion of burglary, made his first court appearance Wednesday and was ordered held on $75,000 bail, said Dan Donohoe, a spokesman for King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg. Formal charges are expected to be filed Thursday afternoon, he said.

According to Pi Kappa Phi members, the recent break-ins at the house in the 4500 block of 17th Avenue Northeast occurred between 4 and 6 a.m. Sometimes the man would prowl outside, other times he'd enter an unlocked door or window. Loose change, cash and clothes were the most likely items to be reported missing, fraternity members said.

Kevin March, 19, a sophomore studying construction management, had $45 and two pairs of jeans disappear a couple of months ago. Last month, Alex Candoo, a 20-year-old business major, was jarred awake when the downhill ski he'd propped against his bedroom door crashed to the floor at 6 a.m. Another morning, drama major Billy Gleeson, 21, "heard somebody bolt down the hallway at 4:30 and out a side exit."

It got so bad that "people started sleeping with their laptops," Gleeson said. "In all the incidents, someone heard a noise or else they'd seen him."

On Sunday, fraternity President Bryce Bennett and a few others installed a $300 video-surveillance system purchased online. Around 6:15 that morning, the man had gone into an upstairs bedroom and turned on a light, waking up one of the members, but fled before anyone could react, Bennett said.

Bennett said he reviewed video footage Monday morning and realized the same man had been outside the house just after 4 a.m. but wasn't able to get inside.

Tuesday morning, Bennett and a couple of his fraternity brothers were in the first-floor dining room at 4:05 a.m. Bennett was on his laptop computer, which he'd hooked up so that he could view live footage from the surveillance cameras. He saw the same man, glancing around as he tried to open a side door through the kitchen, which was locked.

As Bennett dialed 911, he alerted the others, telling them the man was heading around to the front door, which hadn't been closing properly since someone had splashed gray paint across it, gumming up the jams, in "some college prank," Bennett said.

Sean Beighton, 21, and Stephen Heppler, 19, stationed themselves on either side of the closed, double doors that lead from the foyer into the dining room.

Moments later, the man poked his head into the dining room and spotted Beighton.

"He totally froze. The look on his face was like, 'Are you kidding me?' " Beighton said Wednesday, standing in the same spot where he'd first seen the intruder the day before.

The man bolted for the front door, but Beighton, a former track-team member, beat him there and was able to block the man's escape. Heppler grabbed the man from behind and took him to the floor, Beighton and Bennett said.

Awakened by the commotion, a few frat brothers tore down the stairs, each of them "taking a limb" and pinning the man to the floor, they said.

"The cops came in two minutes later," Bennett said. "They came in the front door, handcuffed him, picked him up and took him out of here."

According to the probable-cause statement filed in the most recent case, police consider Madrid "the possible suspect in several burglaries among fraternities in the area."

When he was arrested, Madrid had $2,730.89 in his pockets, the statement says.

Sara Jean Green: 206-515-5654 or sgreen@seattletimes.com