How Did That Retreat Work Out? -- Further Information

In a recent post--"How Did That Retreat Work Out?"--I noted a story of a triple homicide where the killer admitted that he had chosen his victims specifically because of their relative isolation. Here is another news story about the killer's confessions from The Idaho Statesman:

Dees said he picked the house on Cartwright Road to rob in March because it wasn’t close to any roads or neighbors and it looked as though people who had money lived there, sheriff’s officials posted in a blog Monday evening. He wasn’t familiar with the residents, he said.

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Dees said he used Google Maps to search for remote areas around Boise and Mountain Home for high-end homes to rob. He settled on the area near Cartwright Road and used satellite maps to pick some possible targets.

He said he drove along Cartwright Road on March 8 and began looking around, dismissing some Foothills houses because they were too close to roads or other homes. Once he settled on the Welps’ residence, he said, he parked his car on a nearby street, hiked down a hillside and staked the home out while working on a plan.

He then drove to his Nampa residence, waited until it got darker and drove back to Cartwright Road, he told detectives. Dees said he wore black clothes and armed himself with guns and knives. He parked his car far away and hiked down the hillside again.

Dees said he first broke into a second house being built on the property and stole some power tools. He then moved over to the main house, where he found that a door to the garage was open, so he went inside and hid. He said he found a set of house keys inside a truck in the garage, which he used to get in the house. He saw a security system for the home was not armed when he went inside, he said.

Dees told detectives that if the security system had been turned on, he would have left immediately. He also said he probably would have given up on his plan if the family had a bigger dog, the Sheriff’s Office reported.