A local woman arrested after a string of burglaries struck Newberg last fall has been apprehended after a monthslong search.
Elizabeth Ellece Moser, 44, was arrested in mid-May near Phoenix, Arizona, and was booked at the Maricopa County jail soon after. She remains in custody awaiting extradition to Oregon to face a long list of charges.
Moser absconded in late January after being released on security, prompting the issuance of a nationwide warrant for her arrest by a Yamhill County deputy district attorney after receiving information from Arizona law enforcement authorities that she was in the area, court records indicated. She was arrested soon after by Phoenix police.
Moser and Dylian Michael Simkins, 28, were arrested in mid-December following a slew of property crimes in Newberg during a three-week period in the fall. They were charged with 25 counts of aggravated theft, criminal mischief, theft, burglary, attempted theft, possession of meth and unauthorized use of a vehicle.
The pair were arraigned in late December and indicted by a grand jury on Jan. 11.
An investigation into Moser and Simkins’ activities began in November following burglaries reported at First Street businesses The Vineyard Bar & Grill and Antique Freak & Flea, Portland Road business Eden Gate Restaurant and the Dollar Tree store in the Springbrook Shopping Center.
The Dollar Tree burglary in particular drew the police’s attention. According to a probable cause affidavit filed by the Newberg-Dundee Police Department, on Nov. 6 the manager of the store said she had reported to work to find that the store had been burglarized overnight.
“Officer (Ariel) Siqueiros responded to take the initial report, however, this burglary was further investigated as a single instance of a much larger investigation of multiple commercial burglaries, vehicle thefts and other felony and misdemeanor property crimes,” wrote NDPD Officer L. Fergus. “A significant amount of property from these crimes is still unaccounted for.”
Interviews with Dollar Tree employees found that a pair of individuals matching Moser and Simkins’ descriptions entered the store the night before the burglary and accessed an “employees only” area. Moser is a former employee of the store and was later identified as the suspect.
“It was learned from a text message conversation obtained by a search warrant of a cellular device that Moser had hidden in the walk-in freezer at the back of the store until the employees had left,” Fergus wrote. “Evidence made clear that Moser conspired with her boyfriend, Dylian Simkins, to commit the burglary.”
The pair allegedly broke into the store manager’s office and made off with the store’s safe, which contained more than $2,330 and four retail cash drawers.
During execution of a search warrant on a cell phone seized from the couple, detectives found a photograph from Nov. 6 where “a female appearing to be Moser can be seen sitting on the floor counting piles of cash from four retail-style drawers sitting next to a safe which has the lower vault door open,” the probable cause affidavit said, adding that it appeared the photo was taken in a residence, not the business.
A regional representative for Dollar Tree confirmed that the safe in the photo was a match for the one stolen from the manager’s office.
Allegations of malfeasance by the couple didn’t stop with the Dollar Tree heist. The unauthorized use of a vehicle charges against Moser and Simkins stem from the theft of Providence Newberg Medical Center’s emergency triage trailer, which went missing from the premises in October. The pair also allegedly stole or absconded with numerous vehicles over a three-month period, including a 2004 Ford E350 pickup, 1993 Ford F-150 pickup and a 2004 Ford F-250 pickup.
Court records indicate that police were familiar Moser and Simkins.
“NDPD officers assigned to these cases quickly established patterns and worked together to relentlessly investigate leads,” a release from the department said. “Suspects of interest were established based partly on our prior contacts with them for other criminal activity.”
The NDPD release indicated that the department’s investigation has aided in “solving similar crimes in neighboring jurisdictions and additional suspects are likely,” but stopped short of identifying which jurisdictions or alleged crimes.
Neither Moser or Simkins are strangers to the criminal justice system. Moser was convicted in 2018 on charges of aggravated identity theft, third-degree theft and unauthorized use and entry into vehicles. She was sentenced to 36 months in prison, with two years of post-prison supervision, and ordered to enter a substance abuse program. She was released early from prison, according to the NDPD release, after her sentence was commuted by former Gov. Kate Brown in 2020.
At the time of his arrest, Simkins was on post-prison supervision for unlawful use of a motor vehicle and has had numerous prior arrests. He remains in the Yamhill County jail on $200,000 bail and is scheduled to appear in court June 18 to enter a plea and be sentenced.
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