The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

DAYTON -- A transient man who is suspected of breaking into a Dayton church preschool and may also have broken into several homes in town during the past two months is in custody.

Daniel Baxter, a 34-year-old drifter with ties to Montana, California and Pennsylvania, was arrested by Columbia County Sheriff's deputies late last Thursday afternoon after the officers discovered his hiding place in the basement of an empty home owned by Dayton's Community Bible Church on South Second Street.

"Baxter is the primary suspect in the ongoing investigation of a string of burglaries reported over the...