BY BETTY JESPERSEN
Staff writer

FARMINGTON — A burglary that was two days old before the victim reported it to police netted the intruders a television, a $700 camera and personal property.

Some of the items stolen June 11 from an apartment at 127 Orchard Street were recovered in another unit but Farmington police Officer William Cook said other items, including a combination television/DVD player, CDs and DVDs, had already been disposed of.

Allison Croughwell, 20, a student at the University of Maine at Farmington, and her roommate Debra Arce-Gonzalez, 26, are charged with Class B felony burglary and also felony possession of stolen property, Cook said Tuesday.

The victim, a recent graduate from UM-F, was in midst of moving into her new apartment and had been out of town. When she returned last Wednesday she noticed her television, camera and boxes of clothes, books and music were missing. Cook said the woman thought the former tenant, a friend, may have borrowed them but didn’t ask her about it until the weekend. The friend said she had not been at the apartment.

An anonymous caller tipped off police that the stolen items were in the apartment shared by Croughwell and Arce-Gonzalez, Cook said. Officer Ed Hastings obtained a search warrant that was executed Sunday and led to the recovery of some of Cowper’s property.

“People need to call the police as soon as they think something is wrong so we can secure fresh evidence. In this case, there was a chance we could have gotten all of her stuff back,” Cook said.

Arce-Gonzalez has a prior criminal record that includes theft, he said.