Don’t Forget to Lock Your Doors
A 15-year-old girl called her father, who in turn called 911, after she came home and found it had been ransacked. Seattle Police responded at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, May 8 to the house, located on 11th Avenue West. They spoke with the father and child, who said that when she returned home from school she noticed that a bunch of her clothes and other personal items were scattered around her bedroom as if they had been dumped from her drawers and closets. She and her father said several items had been taken, including two iPods, an iTouch, an Xbox 360 and game, a Macbook, a Sony Vaio computer, a Play Station 3 with controllers, a Juicy Couture purse and charm bracelet and a pair of Gucci sunglasses.
The daughter admitted to her father and police that she’d called her ex-boyfriend at 8:15 that morning before leaving for school. She asked him if he wanted to cut class and come over to the house, but he was with his brother who she said was not invited, because she didn’t trust him. After a brief conversation, she decided not to meet him and went to school. She left the front door unlocked because she didn’t have a key. She also said the two boys are suspects in a burglary at the same address from a year ago, and the ex-boyfriend’s brother is a suspect in several thefts and burglaries.
Police canvassed the neighborhood looking for potential witnesses. The neighbor across the street gave them the descriptions of two young girls he saw enter the house sometime between 9 and 11 a.m. He said he saw the girls walking northbound on 11th Avenue toward the victim’s house. The neighbor said the girls were empty-handed when they walked into the front yard of the victim’s house and up to the front door, and it appeared that they entered the house. About 20 minutes later, he observed the girls walking away from the house. One of them was carrying a white container cradled in her left arm. They walked away westbound.
Shattered Glass
A woman who lives by herself in a house located on 14th Avenue West returned home from work at 7 p.m. on Thursday, May 10 to find the window next to the front door had been smashed out, and the front door was open. Instead of entering her house, she backed away and called 911. Police report that while she was on the phone with the operator she noticed a car slowly driving past her home. She did not recognize the vehicle or its occupants. The victim described the vehicle and one occupant to the 911 operator, but she said she did not see any connection between her home and the vehicle, other than not recognizing the occupants.
When police arrived, the victim entered her home and found a standard-sized brick on the living room floor, surrounded by shattered glass. Every room in her home had been ransacked, with drawers pulled out, contents dumped onto the floor, and various belongings moved from room to room.
Police searched the home, and dusted over a dozen items for fingerprints, but none were recovered. They asked the victim to try to make an inventory of missing items, but she was unable to be thorough due to the massive mess created in every room, but while police where there she said she hadn’t found anything to be missing, and only the one window was broken. Police canvassed the neighborhood for possible witnesses, but were not successful.
A Conversation with a Burglar
The resident of a house located on Williams Avenue West called 911 to report a burglary that occurred in his house while he was home without his knowledge. He had heard the whole thing, but not noticed there was a stranger in the house until it was too late. The event occurred at 12:25 p.m. on Friday, May 11. The victim reports he was upstairs in the bathroom when he heard a loud noise. He didn’t think anything of it, however, because his parents are visiting and he assumed one of them had knocked something over. Instead of going downstairs to investigate, or to see if mom and dad were okay, he continued about his business.
A short while later, the victim heard voices downstairs and he looked over the balcony rail to see the suspect standing just inside the front door. Again, it didn’t occur to him that this was a burglar. Rather, he thought it might be someone working for a moving company. He noticed that the suspect spoke a foreign language and that he was wearing yellow dish-washing gloves. He said to the suspect, “Oh, you’re moving things.” The suspect replied, “Yeah, we’re moving things.” And calmly turned and left the house.
The victim said the suspect walked across the street and got into a faded purple Toyota Camry and drove away southbound on Williams Avenue West. It wasn’t until he went downstairs and found that the door had been kicked in that realized his house had just been burglarized. The man still didn’t call 911, instead opting to call a friend. He waited 30 minutes to call 911, at which point there was nothing police could do to find the suspect. The victim said the only thing that was taken during the burglary was a laptop from a downstairs bedroom.
Copper Thief
On Friday, May 11th at 3:18 p.m. after receiving a 911 call from the manager of an apartment building reporting an unusual burglary, a Seattle Police officer was dispatched to the apartment building located on Fifth Avenue North. This turned out to be a non-forced entry burglary.
Upon arrival, police spoke with the manager of the multi-unit building. He said that sometime between 5 p.m. on May 8 and 3 p.m. on May 9, somebody broke into the storage area underneath the building and stole about 41 feet of copper pipes that had been connected to the building’s plumbing system.
There is one locked entry door to the storage area, which showed no signs of being tampered with. However, there is an area along the storage area’s wall, which has a space large enough for a person to squeeze through from the outside parking lot. This space is behind a small fountain near the front entrance to the building. The manager said that none of the residents have keys to this storage space. He also said he noticed the missing pipes when he heard a lot of water running while he was in the parking lot. He entered the storage area and found water pouring out of pipes from the apartments above into the storage space. Several sections of copper pipes had been removed, and water was running down into a large sandy area where various materials were stored.
Police searched the storage space and found nobody inside. An empty Red Bull can was found inside, and was still wet. The 41 feet of stolen copper pipes are estimated to be worth $2500.
[[In-content Ad]]