Prineville burglary suspect surrenders to police

Hours after Prineville police posted on their Facebook page, asking residents to keep an eye out for a 21-year-old burglary suspect who got into homes by asking to use the bathroom, the woman went to the police department and turned herself in late Friday afternoon, officers said.

Alysa Bennight was wanted on charges of failure to appear for an arrest, two counts of theft and heroin possession.

She turned herself around 4:30 p.m. in the Prineville police parking lot, about a half-hour after the story initially aired on NewsChannel 21 Fox @ 4.

In the updated Facebook post, Prineville police said they wanted to thank the public for being so helpful in the case, and also thanked Bennight “for doing the right thing.”

Bennight was booked into the Crook County Jail on two failure to appear counts, totaling $30,000 bail, online records showed.

Police said this type of crime has happed before, when someone is looking to steal medications, but officers said earlier Friday they don’t believe this is the case for Bennight.

“She didn’t cause any threat of harm to any of our citizens,” Capt. Larry Seymour said. “She simply stole some of their items — which can hurt a citizen in Prineville too, so we want to make them aware of that.”

Police had come in contact with Bennight on Thursday, but before they were able to arrest her, she was able to run away and hide.

“And by the time we could get to the area, she was able to hole up in a house in that area. We don’t know which house, but it was in the northeast part of town,” Seymour said. “Prineville’s so small, you could consider any place in town a possibility.”

Seymour also said that in his time with the department, this is not the first time they have seen someone attempt to gain access to a home by asking to use the bathroom.

This type of crime is also the topic of our new KTVZ.COM Poll: Would you let someone into your house to use the bathroom? Find our poll halfway down the right side of our home page.