The Juneau Police Department has named a 20-year-old Juneau man as a person of interest following an early morning theft Tuesday at the Best Western Country Lane Inn in the Mendenhall Valley.
Police say Keith Joseph Nelson Jr., 20, matches the description of a man seen on the hotel’s surveillance footage hanging out in the hotel lobby around 1:14 a.m. before going behind the counter and allegedly taking an undisclosed amount of money from a cash drawer.
JPD spokesman Lt. David Campbell said in a phone interview Tuesday that only one employee, a 28-year-old Juneau woman, appeared to be working in the lobby when the theft reportedly took place. She told police that she tried to tell the suspect to leave, but when he walked behind the lobby desk, she hid in a back office and called for help. Campbell said she was not harmed and it appears the suspect did have a weapon.
Police were unable to locate the suspect and the employee said she did not see in which direction he fled the area, Campbell said. The woman described the suspect as a 6-foot-1-inch tall Alaska Native man between 17 and 25 years of age, with a slim build and medium-length dark hair. He was seen wearing blue jeans and a long sleeve green shirt with the logo name “Carhartt” down one sleeve.
“She had seen him around previously but didn’t know his name,” Campbell said. He added that when the employee was shown a picture of JPD’s person of interest, Neslon, she said they appeared to be the same person.
Nelson is described by police as a 20-year-old Alaska Native male, 6’1” tall, 175 pounds, with black hair. There is an outstanding $20,000 Alaska State Trooper warrant for Nelson’s arrest for a probations violation on an original charge of two counts of burglary in the second degree, according to the JPD press release. Police are asking anyone with knowledge of Nelson’s whereabouts to contact JPD at 586-0600.
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The frame from the Best Western Country Lane Inn’s surveillance footage shows a man police say stole an undisclosed amount of money from the hotel’s cash drawer.
