If Mike Couture hadn’t been in a minor car crash on Friday, Feb. 16, he wouldn’t have gone home and interrupted a daytime burglary.

Couture left his home at 3 Tebbetts Lane for work Friday at about 10 a.m., and didn’t expect to be home all day.

“Then, less than a quartermile from my house, someone ran me off the road on New Boston Road,” he said.

A driver, apparently talking on a cell phone, crossed the center line and forced Couture off the road. His car ended up in a roadside ditch and he called Bedford police.

An officer gave Couture a ride home and they talked for minute before the officer left.

When Couture got inside, he discovered he had interrupted a burglary. He said the burglars must have run when they saw him and the officer.

Couture found piles of his valuables – including his gun – ready to be hauled away with a backpack that had been left behind, he said.

In his home office, drawers were pulled out and his personal files had been sifted through. Some valuables were missing, he said.

“I ran through the house, I thought they were still in the house. I was going to kick somebody’s ass,” Couture said.

After finding no one there, Couture called police.

Bedford responded, as well as Goffstown police, state police and the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s deputies, said Bedford Detective Matthew Fleming.

Police set up a perimeter and tracked footprints in the snow and with the help of police canine, three suspects were caught.

Arrested were Keith Gustafson, 17, of Manchester, Phat Tay, 17, of Manchester, and a juvenile who was waiting in the area to apparently pick up the pair, Fleming said.

Couture said his 16-year-old daughter might know one or more of the suspects.

“That might be how they knew I wasn’t going to be there all day,” he said.

On Tuesday, Feb. 20, Gustafson and Tay were arraigned in Merrimack District Court on a felony charge of burglary. They were also charged with resisting arrest, a Class A misdemeanor, to which they both plead not guilty.

Tay posted $10,000 cash bail and Gustafson is being held on $10,000 cash bail. Also, Gustafson is currently out on bail for a burglary arrest in Manchester earlier this month, Fleming said.

There was recently a rash of daytime burglaries in Bedford and police are looking into whether this burglary is related, Fleming said.

“We’re looking at this pretty seriously to see if any of these suspects are suspects in any of our other burglaries,” he said.