Timothy Smith and his fiancée thought it was odd when they pulled up to their Gresham home with relatives Sunday afternoon and spotted a MacBook Pro, a bottle of cider and knives atop their car.

They brought the items inside, thinking maybe they were misplaced by one of their friends or new neighbors. The couple had closed on the house about two weeks earlier and hosted a party on Saturday to celebrate their upcoming October wedding. They planned to finish moving in all of their belongings later Sunday.

Inside the home, Smith and his fiancée noticed some of their things had been shifted around and spotted a vape pen in their kitchen that wasn’t theirs. Someone had taken off a central heating grate in the hallway and pulled out the filter.

“So then I grab two of the knives and I’m walking around looking for someone because clearly a person broke in,” Smith, 24, told The Oregonian/OregonLive Monday.

He found the master bedroom door locked. The couple used a key to get inside. They found no one. But the window was open, the screen was torn off and someone had apparently kicked a hole in the wall, burrowing into an adjacent bedroom.

The couple found holes in the wall of that bedroom too and a mirror ripped off a nearby bathroom wall. Smith’s hats filled the bathtub and a stranger’s clothes sat atop the washing machine.

Smith saw that a hatch to a crawl space inside a third bedroom was open, so he went down there with the knifes. He crawled through the roughly 3-feet tall space and yelled for anyone inside to announce themselves.

Smith said he crawled about half way through the space when he saw a cat wearing a green cashmere sleeveless shirt belonging to one of his Chihuahuas staring back at him.

“No one leaves a dressed cat in a crawl space unless they’re coming back or they’re still here,” Smith said. “So I got out and shut the door.”

Smith, his fiancée and her relatives retreated outside and called 911. Gresham police officers arrived soon after.

About 15 minutes later, Smith said they heard what sounded like handcuffs tightening and saw officers leading a man out the front door. The stranger was wearing Smith’s fiancée’s hooded onesie adorned with hearts and snowflakes.

“We were livid,” Smith said. “Our sanctuary was destroyed by someone who had no business being there and here he is wearing my fiancee’s clothes. There’s just no reason for it.”

Smith said the couple spent a year looking for their first home together and three months purchasing the Gresham house. They had almost finished moving in when they were burglarized.

Over the three hours the home was left unoccupied Sunday, Smith said the man broke in through the bedroom window, went through the walls, made himself coffee, ate a cupcake, drank beer from the fridge, smoked their marijuana and played video games in the garage. Needles were on the ground in the garage, that police said had methamphetamine inside, Smith said.

The man, later identified by police as 38-year-old Ryan Bishop, at some point took yarn that Smith’s fiancée’s aunt brought to make a quilt for the couple into the crawl space with him, tied one end to the bottom of the crawl space entrance and another where he was hiding in an apparent attempt to be alerted to anyone coming into the space, Smith said.

“I don’t hate the guy and I guess if there is anything I hope people take away from this is that if you’re looking for help, then seek it, because there’s nothing else you can do for yourself in that situation,” he said. “I’ve been in his shoes. Four years ago, I was an addict in Raleigh, North Carolina, and today I’m clean and a homeowner, but it doesn’t happen without seeking help.”

Bishop remains held Monday in the Multnomah County Detention Center on accusations of first-degree burglary and first-degree criminal mischief.

Smith said he isn’t sure where the items on the car or the cat, who police said Bishop named Spaghetti, came from. The cat initially refused to leave the crawl space, but has since come out. Smith said the feline is staying with him and his fiancée as they try to determine if anyone in the area had their cat stolen.

Smith said the couple owns four other cats, two dogs and a snake and can’t take on another pet.

-- Everton Bailey Jr.

ebailey@oregonian.com | 503-221-8343 |@EvertonBailey

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