Woman Arrested For Allegedly Squatting Inside Vacant Ellensburg Home

A Kittitas County woman is behind bars after police say she was found squatting inside a vacant home in rural Ellensburg late last week.

The Ellensburg Daily Record reports deputies with the Kittitas County Sheriff's Office responded to the residence on Reecer Creek Road on Thursday (Sept. 24) evening, after a woman called police regarding a suspicious vehicle with Missouri license plates outside the home.

Arriving deputies learned the woman who made the report lives next door and is also the home's property manager, who told them she'd just cleaned the residence and left all the blinds open but noticed they were all suddenly closed.

The woman contacted the home's owner and confirmed that no one was supposed to be at the property.

Deputies located the SUV seen by the property manager inside a barn adjacent to the residence and established a perimeter around the home.

After making several attempts to urge whomever was inside the residence to exit the home using the loudspeakers in their patrol cars without success, 43-year-old Megan Denise Goodyear of Ellensburg finally surrendered after deputies threatened to send a K9 dog into the house.

Goodyear was arrested and booked into the Kittitas County Jail for first-degree trespassing and second-degree burglary.

Police also discovered a dog belonging to Goodyear inside the residence that was turned over to animal control, while her SUV was impounded.