Fairfax County Police arrested a suspect in an alleged tree-cutting scam.
Police tracked down John Samuel Walker at a motel in Prince William County over the weekend. He had multiple outstanding warrants and faces felony and misdemeanor charges.
Rose Mikus of Reston, Virginia, said Walker randomly showed up at her home and offered to take down dead trees. She and another Virginia woman who told News4 she also got an unsolicited visit from Savannah’s Tree and Yard Experts accepted the tree-removal offers and don't dispute the trees were dead, but they said the crew never returned to remove the stumps as stated in their contracts.
Mikus claims Walker then used scare tactics to try to get her to pay an additional $14,000 to fix her roof. She said he told her the roof had three holes and showed her wet insulation she assumed was from one of the holes.
She agreed to pay but decided to get a second opinion from a licensed roofer before the work started. That roofer told her there weren’t any holes.
The owner of Savannah’s Tree and Yard Experts, Michael Jackson, said he never heard of Walker and never met Mikus.
The investigation into Jackson and his company is ongoing and more arrests are expected soon, Fairfax County police said.
