Trudy Murphy appeals her convictions on five counts of burglary and one count of trafficking methamphetamine, arguing that the trial court erred in denying her motion to suppress, and that therefore the evidence supporting her convictions should have been excluded as the fruit of an unlawful arrest. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm. Construing the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, Davis v. State ,1 the record shows that at 5:30 a.m. on August 10, 2004, a sheriff’s deputy was driving past a residence, which he knew to be vacant, when he observed a red Jeep leaving the property in the darkness with its lights off. As he neared the residence, he watched the vehicle drive two or three car lengths before turning on its lights. The deputy knew the family who owned the house and did not recognize the vehicle as belonging to them. He also knew that the home had been unoccupied for several years and had been the target of several recent burglaries. The deputy caught up to the vehicle to obtain the license plate number, and radioed the number to dispatch. He then returned to the residence to determine if it had been burglarized. Upon surveying the property, he observed signs of recent forced entry, including a newly cut screen and a broken window, and also discovered that the back door had been forcibly opened and secured with a rope from the outside.
Two other officers, who were also familiar with the vacant residence, and who had been keeping an eye on it because of the past burglaries, heard the deputy’s radio report of the suspicious vehicle. Dispatch indicated that the tag was registered to Murphy, and thus the officers proceeded to Murphy’s address. While in route, the two officers heard the investigating deputy’s call reporting that the residence appeared to have been recently burglarized. The officers arrived at Murphy’s address approximately ten minutes after the investigating deputy initially reported her vehicle’s suspicious activity. Although they did not see the vehicle when they first arrived at her property, after proceeding on foot with a flashlight, one of the officers observed the Jeep, being driven by Murphy, pull out from behind an outbuilding with its lights off. The officers arrested Murphy and her passenger for suspicion of burglary, and a search incident to arrest produced a bag containing methamphetamine. Search warrants were issued for Murphy’s residence as well as the outbuilding, and those searches revealed a large quantity of stolen items, processed methamphetamine and a methamphetamine lab. Subsequent to the arrest and searches, Murphy made inculpatory written and oral statements to investigators.
