Bremerton man charged with murder arrested, woman charged for helping him to elude capture
Caleb Sloan, a 29-year-old Bremerton man who had eluded arrest for two months after he was charged with murder for the shooting death of a man in North Kitsap in early October, was arrested in Kingston on Saturday after a series of law enforcement pursuits, according to court documents. The day before, a North Kitsap woman who investigators linked to Sloan was charged in Kitsap County Superior Court for helping him to evade law enforcement.
Sloan was charged Oct. 3 with a count of second-degree murder and a count of first-degree burglary in connection with the killing of Brandon Egeler at a residence just outside Poulsbo city limits on Lincoln Road, and law enforcement had been seeking him since then. Prosecutors filed the same charges against another man, Aksel Strom, and he was arrested later that month.
Sloan was further charged with a count of eluding a police vehicle and a count of possession of a stolen vehicle on Monday, and in an initial court appearance, he pleaded not guilty to all the charges. His bail was set at $1 million.
Stephanie Jean Barker, 40, of North Kitsap, was charged with a count of first-degree rendering criminal assistance after investigators concluded that she was helping Sloan to evade law enforcement. She pleaded not guilty to the charge on Friday and was released on a promise to appear. She was ordered to not have contact with Sloan.
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Pursuit began in Jefferson County
In a social media post on Saturday, the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office said that investigators there had received information that Sloan had been frequenting Jefferson County in a gray Acura, and on Saturday afternoon, a deputy spotted the vehicle and followed it. As it approached the Hood Canal Bridge, "the suspect began driving recklessly and performed evasive maneuvers."
The vehicle eluded Jefferson County deputies, but a Kitsap County sheriff's deputy spotted the vehicle on Highway 104 in the area of Streibel's Corner, that deputy wrote in a report. The deputy turned around to pursue the vehicle and watched as it "veered into oncoming traffic, increased speed, and began driving at a high rate of speed away from my patrol vehicle," the deputy wrote.
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The chase continued at high speeds through North Kitsap until Sloan attempted to pass traffic and crashed into the back of an Amazon truck at the intersection of West Kingston Road and South Kingston Road. He ran from the vehicle onto a nearby beach and was followed by the deputy, and Sloan eventually surrendered. The pursuit was 4.5 miles in length and lasted about three-and-a-half minutes, the deputy wrote.
Sloan was taken to St. Michael Medical Center in Silverdale and then booked into the Kitsap County Jail.
A witness to the crash told law enforcement that he saw Sloan and the deputy run from the scene and then saw who he believed was a woman run from the Acura in a separate direction, according to court documents.
The Acura was determined to be stolen from Bremerton, the deputy wrote.
Incident on Sawdust Hill Road leads to connections
Investigators linked Sloan to an incident that was reported last week, Dec. 6, in which a stolen vehicle, a Honda, was found stuck in the mud against an embankment along Sawdust Hill Road, north of Poulsbo. A witness told law enforcement that he had seen occupants of a tan/gold Chevrolet Malibu take items out of the vehicle and then quickly get into their car as a deputy had approached. That deputy attempted to stop the vehicle, but it sped away. The fleeing vehicle's license plate was recorded, and it returned to Barker's father.
The stolen Honda was searched, and investigators found a firearm, a debit card for a known associate of Sloan, several cell phones, a laptop and a digital camera. Those items were searched, and a video of Sloan showing his face and tattoos was found.
On Thursday, Dec. 7, as investigators were searching the area, they saw a tan/gold Chevrolet Malibu pulling out of an address on Sawdust Hill Road, near the site where the stolen vehicle was found crashed.
The Malibu was recognized as the same one that had fled from the scene of the crashed Honda and was stopped by law enforcement. Barker was at the wheel, and a woman identified as the girlfriend of Strom, the other suspect in Egeler's murder, was also inside the vehicle, as was that woman's daughter and a white pit bull dog known to be owned by Sloan, according to court documents. Barker told investigators that she had no knowledge of who was in her car when it was observed at the site of the stolen vehicle, a Kitsap County detective wrote in a report.
The owner of the residence on Sawdust Hill Road told investigators that he was friends with Barker's father and said he was allowing Barker, her daughter and a girl identified as a cousin to stay at his house for a few months.
An investigator spoke with the two girls, and they reported that Sloan had been seen at the house on Dec. 6 and was last seen leaving the house with Barker that night, the detective wrote.
The detective wrote that Barker was rumored to be in a dating relationship with Sloan previously, but through Barker's father, investigators learned that they were actually related. The Malibu was registered to the woman's father, but he said that it was generally driven by his daughter, the detective wrote.
A deputy wrote that law enforcement again spoke to the man who had initially reported the incident involving the stolen Honda, and he said that he was "about 80% sure Barker was one of the females he saw, but could not definitively say. (He) also reiterated that the driver was a bald white male wearing a sweatshirt, and a white pit bull dog was in the backseat."
"Based on the familial relation and observation of Stephanie Barker and her vehicle's involvement in the stolen Honda, as well as (the girls) witnessing of Stephanie and Caleb at the residence on 12/06/2023, leaving the house together, it is reasonable to believe that Stephanie has knowledge of Caleb's status as a fugitive, and was assisting Caleb, transporting him from her residence to an unknown location," the detective wrote.
This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: More charges for North Kitsap murder suspect after chases
