Facing eight counts of second degree burglary and one count of attempted burglary for a series of smash-and-grab burglaries in Burien and West Seattle, Stephen H. Kirk plead guilty to his charges in March.
On May 6, he was sentenced to 5 ½ years in prison for his crimes before Judge Mariane Spearman. It was the high end of his sentencing range. Before Friday’s sentence, Kirk had been booked 37 times and had 89 warrants out since 1984, according to Court Service records.
According to charging documents, through the summer months of 2010 Kirk had a habit of taking rocks, bricks or cinder blocks and chucking them through the windows of businesses between midnight and 6 a.m. Once inside he would take cash from tip jars, gumball machines and cash registers. On a few occasions he took the whole cash register with him.
Seattle Police and King County detectives worked together to identify Kirk as their suspect and KCSO detectives obtained a search warrant to place a GPS tracking device on his red pickup truck on August 6, 2010, according to court documents.
GPS data placed Kirk’s truck near the scene of two burglaries in West Seattle over the next few days and police from both departments began joint surveillance on Kirk. On August 11 police apprehended him in Burien after he burglarized a motorsports retail store.
He was linked to the other burglaries through surveillance footage, GPS data and eyewitness accounts.