'Prolific' car thief linked to North Kitsap murder suspect, explosive device arrested

Investigators have linked a 27-year-old East Bremerton man who they described as a "prolific" car thief to a swath of crimes in recent months, including numerous instances of possessing a stolen vehicle and helping a wanted murder suspect last year, according to court documents.

On Wednesday, prosecutors filed a notice of arrest document in Kitsap County Superior Court that links Charles Douglas Vargo to those crimes and to Caleb Sloan, a murder suspect who was wanted for about two months before he was arrested in Kingston in December.

Vargo was arrested on Tuesday and is being held at the Kitsap County Jail. In an initial court appearance on Wednesday, his bail was set at $500,000.

A Bremerton police detective wrote in court documents that investigators with the Kitsap County Sheriff's Office and the Bremerton Police Department have been following up on investigations linked to Vargo and indicated that he had been connected to 38 cases. The document filed Wednesday connected Vargo to 12 instances of possession of a stolen vehicle.

"With the volume of his criminal activity, he has wreaked havoc on our communities and created a heavy load for investigators to process evidence and submit probable cause statements to the court," the detective wrote. "Once Vargo is in custody, investigators will have an opportunity to 'catch up' with the majority of the cases."

During Vargo's court appearance, Kitsap County sheriff's Detective Brittany Gray said that it has been difficult for law enforcement to keep up with Vargo's criminal activity and said investigation into the man is ongoing.

"It has been a weekly, if not daily task, for our deputies to be recovering or taking stolen vehicle reports from the community," she said. "This is not isolated just to Kitsap County, the investigation is going to show. This touches all over the place."

She added: "If we think about it, a vehicle is probably the second largest purchase for somebody, aside from a house. A lot of these thefts are occurring at apartment complexes, where a lot of community members are maybe a paycheck or two away from actually losing their home, and any outside costs are incredibly impactful."

Notably, investigators linked Vargo to Sloan, the murder suspect: "Intelligence had been gathered that Vargo was assisting Sloan with hiding and evading law enforcement," the Bremerton detective wrote, noting that Vargo was being investigated for a rendering criminal assistance charge.

In one instance in December, a deputy found a stolen Chevy Camaro in Bremerton that had been taken from The Point Casino in Little Boston. An expired license plate for a BMW registered to a close associate of Vargo's was found in the vehicle, as was a bag that had the name of a known girlfriend of Vargo's on it. Also found were 17 firecrackers and what was confirmed by Washington State Patrol bomb squad investigators to be an improvised explosive device. Surveillance video captured the vehicle being dumped, and a deputy identified the driver as Vargo.

In another instance, Vargo was connected to a Honda Civic that was taken from an East Bremerton apartment complex in December. Law enforcement reviewed video that showed Vargo and his girlfriend arriving in the stolen Civic at another apartment complex in East Bremerton and getting into a stolen Volkswagen Jetta with a stolen license plate on it, according to court documents.

The Civic was eventually recovered after its driver eluded a Port Orchard police officer and a Washington State Patrol airplane. The Civic's plates were stolen, and a plate stolen from a location in Silverdale was placed on the car. Inside the Civic, investigators found a laptop that was stolen with an Acura Integra from a location in East Bremerton in December, and that Acura was the car Sloan was driving on the day he was arrested in December.

In one instance in October last year, Vargo was identified as the driver of a stolen GMC Terrain that eluded law enforcement and drove the wrong way on Highway 3. The vehicle was later found unoccupied and recovered.

In another instance in October, a man called 911 to report that he had purchased a Honda CRV from Vargo, his friend, who "swore up and down that the vehicle was a clean vehicle and not stolen," according to court documents. The man paid Vargo $1,000 for the vehicle, looked up its VIN and determined it was stolen. A deputy determined that the CRV was stolen and that a license plate on the vehicle was stolen from a vehicle in Federal Way.

In another instance, a Honda Civic that was stolen from a location in Port Hadlock in December was spotted in North Kitsap. The vehicle sped away from a Kitsap deputy going nearly 100 mph, that deputy estimated. That vehicle was found abandoned near Poulsbo city limits, and a man walking away from the vehicle was detained. He reported that Vargo had been the driver.

The rear license plate was spray painted black, and the front license plate was missing. The owner of the vehicle reported that $2,500 worth of property was missing.

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Bremerton man accused of stealing cars, high-speed chases arrested