A Prior Lake man is charged with first-degree burglary after a Bloomington couple’s car keys, a purse and a Toyota Camry were taken from their home while they slept, according to a criminal complaint. He later fled from officers in the car and then ran off on foot, the complaint says.
James Francis Muelken, 42, faces felony counts of first-degree burglary of an occupied dwelling, theft of a motor vehicle and fleeing a peace officer in a motor vehicle. The complaint was issued Oct. 20 in Hennepin County District Court with a warrant for his arrest, and bail was set at $100,000.
According to the complaint, Bloomington police were called at about 8:23 a.m. Oct. 14 to a home on the 9800 block of Dellridge Road. The man who lives there said he woke at about 5 a.m. and could not find his car key, which he had left on the kitchen counter. The woman could not find her purse, which held her vehicle keys, and her black Camry was gone from the driveway. The couple believed someone came in through a back door that may have been unlocked while they slept.
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She tracked AirPods that had been in her purse to a Holiday Inn Express in Bloomington, and the car was found there, the complaint says. At about 10 a.m., an investigator saw Muelken get into it. When officers pulled behind the car and turned on their lights, he drove off, but the tires went flat on tire-deflation devices officers had put down, and he ran away on foot, according to the complaint.
Officers who had dealt with Muelken before recognized him as he ran, and video from a yard he ran through helped identify him, the complaint says. He had checked into the hotel under his own name, and a backpack in the car held an envelope with his name on it, his Social Security card and the woman’s driver’s license. Other items in the car belonged to victims of other recent burglaries in the metro area, according to the complaint.
The complaint says that as of Oct. 19 he had not been caught.
