Braydon Carper, left, sits with his younger brothers Trenton and Skyler.
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
ADNA – It’s summertime. Braydon Carper is 13 years old and sometimes he babysits his 7-year-old brother Trenton.
Last week, while the two boys were at home alone, someone came knocking at the door of their Adna home and like he’s been told, Braydon didn’t answer it. He told Trenton to go his room and be quiet.
When their father got home from work, he saw religious literature on the porch and asked if someone came by.
The unexpected visit from Jehovah’s Witnesses was a good opportunity, according to their mother Krysta Carper, to talk to the boys in more detail about what to do if anyone they don’t know comes to the door when they’re home alone.
“I instructed them, no matter who came to the door, even if it’s a police officer, not to answer it,” Krysta Carper said.
The conversation that night paid off.
The following day, last Thursday, the Carpers for the very first time left their 5-year-old Skyler with the older boys while they went to work.
The children said they sitting on the couch watching television when a vehicle pulled up into their driveway and parked.
Trenton looked out the window and saw the foot of someone getting out of a red van.
Braydon took his little brothers into their bedroom, he said.
“We heard knocking,” Braydon said. “About a minute later, we heard slamming. Like hard slamming, so we locked the door.”
Braydon called his mother. Skyler hid in his closet. And Trenton climbed under his bed.
Their little dachshund Rider growled and barked so hard he retched, according to the boys.
Krysta Carper called 911 and called her son back to get him on the phone with a 911 operator.
The mother of three practically flew home to their Penning Road two-story. When she arrived, deputies were inside and the front door was broken. The intruder was gone.
And sure enough, she noticed some of her jewelry that had been on the counter in the bathroom was missing.
A deputy on his way to answer the call stopped a red van about a quarter mile away and detained a woman.
According to charging documents, on the floor of the van was a long crowbar type tool, next to it a pair of gloves lay.
The woman said she uses it to remove her hubcaps.
A small plastic baggie containing suspected methamphetamine was found; a meth pipe was inside her purse, according to charging documents.
The plastic diaper wipes container with a purple lid that Krysta Carper keeps her costume jewelry in was also found in the van, charging documents allege.
Darlene J. Lockard
Darlene J. Lockard, 50, of Olympia, was arrested and booked into the Lewis County Jail.
She was charged with residential burglary, possession of methamphetamine and misdemeanor theft. A judge last Friday set her bail at $100,000.
This morning, Lockard pleaded not guilty in Lewis County Superior Court.
Her attorney asked Judge Richard Brosey to reduce her bail. She’s not a flight risk, Centralia defense attorney David Arcuri said, she has a pending case in Thurston County.
As Brosey began to recite the 16 counts pending against her – burglary, theft, possession of stolen property and so on – Lockard hung her head. He denied the request noting there were children inside the house she allegedly burglarized.
Two grown daughters of Lockard’s were in the courtroom, not in support of their mother, but hoping to make sure she didn’t bail out of jail.
“She’s been down this path for way too long,” Misty Ward said. “I think this is the right place for her now.”
The daughters said their mother is separated from her husband and has been staying with a friend in Lewis County.
“She was clean for almost two years, then she started spiraling,” Ward said.
Krysta and Chris Carper came to the courthouse as well, to see the woman they believe barged into their home, while their three young boys cowered in a bedroom.
Krysta Carper thinks it probably wasn’t their barking dog that scared off the intruder, but was instead their home telephone answering machine.
During the various attempts to get her 13-year-old on the phone with 911, a dispatcher left a message saying, “This is 911, your mom called us; you need to pick up the phone.”
“I think she might have heard that message,” Krysta Carper said. “And realized, the one bedroom door that closed, there was someone in there.”
The Carper’s advice for all parents:
“I just urge parents to have a conversation with their kids, about what you would do if somebody kicked in the door,” Krysta Carper said. “I don’t know what they would have done if we hadn’t told them what to do.”
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter
@D – an Alaskan Island with modest apartments, space for a garden, maybe a few grizzly bears to keep the peace… sounds great to me! If I were a lobbiest, that’s what I’d hound for. 🙂
I’m with Bat Man Kills . . . some tweaker piece of shit kicks my door in and they are in for the surprise of their life. I am so tired of hearing about these lowlifes and the crimes they commit to support their habits. I’d love to see them all relocated to a place where they could only victimize one another. They’d destroy each other in no time.
I am embarassed of our legal system. I was informed by someone who spoke with Darlene about all of her legal issues, she was told she is only getting sentenced to 15 months in jail. A total of 15 months for all break-ins in Thurston and Lewis Countys. 16 counts total gets you under a year and a half in jail. A repeat offender, maybe someone should break into the Judge or the State Appointed Lawyers houses and see how it feels.
This is not an attack on the parents! Good grief, sunshinegirl, don’t try to make this into something that it isn’t. I responded to barking@flies to clarify myself and apologize for my lack of ability to express my original thoughts. Is that ok? Do you not ever accept apologies from people?? There is absolutely no need for you to try to pit people against each other.
I was pretty much raised by a single Dad who worked two jobs to raise the five of us , of course it was in a small town , but we turned out fine and I was the oldest. Some times it was a burden but my Dad was actually considered a good father figure ,Barks at Flies (like to hear the story behind that) you are a good friend , and this should not be a fucking attack on the parents , no matter how polite it sounds thats what it is. This was a scary situation and the kids did fine. The fact that this young family has two parents that are employed is a miracle in itself today. When I was growing up neighbors and friends helped also , actually it was hard to get away with much as in my town they took that it takes a villiage to raise a child serious . So maybe these folks could alert the old Lady in the hood , and there is usually one that watchs everything and let her know to be nosy. We do that where I live in Randle and it works fine even today. And most important give the big brother a hand as he did real good as far as I am concerned. I was the big Sis to a whole passle of little brothers and we even lived out of town in Packwood but we did fine by ourselves. I know the world is different today, but kids are smarter , they have more info. then we ever did and they can be trained to protect themselves just like the Carper kids did.
Teach you children to use firearms, Tweekers have no respect for anyone or anything. Ka Blam O, if you come here Tweekers.
@barks@flies – actually, I hadn’t really had that thought specifically about these children… just their pic alone says a lot. But, rather, I was thinking of all the children I’ve encountered over my many years that truly were holed up in the house; LatchKey kids as we used to call them. In fact, as a young mother, my children were latchkey kids for a while. At the time I felt truly guilty about it, as I do still (even though they are successful grown adults with their own successful children). It’s just that our economy is such that a family of a certain income level, has absolutely no choice. I feel like there is a “slipping” of our society and family values… but not because we as parents choose for it to be that way… it just saddens me that so many children are nearly raising themselves. I speak from past experience. But I don’t believe, nor did I mean to insinuate that the parents aren’t good ones. My apologies for that. I’m very happy that the children knew exactly what to do and that they weren’t physically harmed. Kudos to the family for having the conversation and kudos to the KIDS for keeping their cool and doing the exact right thing.
@MorningCoffee….i’m in agreement with children being holed up in the house all day. in this case, i can guarantee you that ‘these children’ have NEVER been holed up in the house all day. i’ve kyrsta for 17 years and she’s one of best mothers i’ve ever met and her /their children are the most respectful, intelligent, and well-balanced children i’ve ever known. also, FYI….krysta was a stay at home mother up till a couple of years ago. krysta and her husband are amazing parents!!! sooo…if you’re bothered about these parents and these children being left at home all holed up, please rest assured, they aren’t.
I’m sick of all these crimes too. But (unrelated to the crime) another thing that really bothers me is making children stay home all day holed up in a house for the whole freakin’ day…. every day. It’s just not right. I know it’s a financial issue for the families, but the children deserve to have a childhood.
We got plenty of islands in the Aleutian chain that would be perfect to send those “people” to…. but they’d have to learn to build stuff out of nothing, and eat with even less…. so yeah, I’m all for it!
I am very fond of this idea to send all tweekers to some new found planet, although with recent NASA budget cuts in mind, we taxpayers will have to be willing to pony up some funds to both find a new planet and shuttle tweekers to and fro.
These not guilty pleas piss me off, you know if she had money she would not be kickin in doors so now we get to pay her legal fees too. It sucks being a tax payer some days. She was caught red handed. They should get a longer sentence just for costing the tax payers the thousands it will cost to defend her.Can’t we just find another planet or some Island where we can drop all the tweekers off and let them prey on each other instead of hard working folks?