Niles man sentenced to 8 years in prison for burglaries

Staff report

WARREN

Half of the husband-and-wife duo who committed two Girard burglaries and a car break-in while their small children sat in the back seat of their car has been sentenced to prison.

Jacob M. Burchell, 29, of Franklin Street in Niles, was sentenced to eight years in prison Thursday in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court — one year more than his wife, Nicole M. Burchell, 26, received in August.

Both were convicted of two counts of burglary and single misdemeanor counts of endangering children and petty theft. Jacob Burchell’s charges also contained a specification that a gun was involved in one of the burglaries.

Police said the Burchells were captured about 11 a.m. Jan. 10 in the kitchen of an unoccupied home they had broken into in the 800 block of Lawrence Avenue in Girard.

Police were called to the home by a neighbor who spotted the break-in.

Police found a pillowcase containing pill bottles, cellphone cases, a box of ammunition and a loaded handgun in a kitchen wastebasket. The homeowner said the pillowcase and the items inside it were hers.

Police discovered that the Burchells had committed another burglary the same day in the 400 block of East Prospect Street in Girard by finding paperwork in the Burchells car for a home on Prospect.

Officers found a rear door shattered at the home and then learned that items in the Burchells’ car had come from the Prospect residence.

The petty theft charge stemmed from a car break-in involving a relative of Nicole Burchell’s, police said.