Police search for stolen vehicle full of newspapers

An unknown person jumped into the driver’s side of a car being used to deliver newspapers this morning, stealing the car along with a hundred copies of the Juneau Empire.

As James Walker, 64, was delivering newspapers in front of Frontier Suites Airport Hotel, he left a 2015 orange Toyota RAV4 idling and unlocked.

“The victim reported seeing a white female adult, wearing a white hoodie and exercise pants, jump into the vehicle and drive away,” Juneau Police Department Lt. David Campbell said on the phone Friday morning.

JPD received a call about the theft at 5:05 a.m. and are looking for the car.

“The driver reported seeing this woman with a white hoodie beforehand walking on the side of the road in the area of Travelodge and Best Western,” he said. Campbell added that Frontier Suites does not have a video surveillance system.

The RAV4 belongs to rental car company Avis, where Walker is the shop manager. Walker is married to Beatrice Jones, a contractor for the Empire’s delivery service.

“He spent some time this morning looking for the car, but he couldn’t find it. He’s out right now looking again,” Jones said Friday afternoon.

“We know our newspapers are valuable. We’re just disappointed someone stole our carrier’s car to get them,” said Rustan Burton, the Empire’s publisher. “In all seriousness, we request the public’s help to find their car.”

As a result of the theft, some locations out the road that normally sell the newspaper — like Safeway, Frontier Suites, the ferry terminal, Auke Bay post office and Deharts — were stuck without papers this morning. They’ve since been delivered, the Empire’s circulation and production director Brian Naplachowski said.

Campbell said JPD has a “fairly decent success rate” of finding stolen vehicles. Of 59 cars that were stolen in Juneau in 2015, 20 of them were recovered, he said.

• Contact reporter Lisa Phu at 523-2246 or at lisa.phu@juneauempire.com. Reporter Paula Ann Solis contributed reporting to this story.

New restrictions on sex ed become law

BLM finalizes transfer of St. Lawrence Island to village corporations