Early Saturday morning, a man broke into an antique store in South Anchorage and walked away with tens of thousands of dollars worth of ivory and other Alaska Native artifacts.
The suspect, Timothy Hayes, 60, was arrested later that evening.
Employees of Duane’s Auction Market arrived at work at 9 a.m. Saturday and found the front glass window smashed.
Security footage from the store shows a man in a black trench coat broke in about 5:30 a.m. Saturday.
He grabbed ivory artifacts, including a large ivory tusk, wrapped them up in a rug and made off in a late ’90s sedan.
Anchorage police put a call out for the suspect, sending photos of the man and his car out to the public.
Then, Saturday evening Airport Police responded to a welfare check.
An older man was asking for gas money.
When airport police arrived they found Hayes in his 1999 green Ford Contour. In the backseat of Hayes’s care was the rolled up rug with a large ivory tusk sticking out.
Hayes was arrested by the Anchorage police on charges of burglary, theft and criminal mischief.
The Alaska Native artifacts were seized by the police as evidence.
