Sunday at about 7:30 a.m. police responded to a burglary at a home in the Merriman Park neighborhood of Lake Highlands. The homeowners sent out a mass email warning neighboring residents about the event that undoubtedly freaked them out. Just reading about it makes me jumpy.

“Our home was burglarized last night while we were both in the house asleep with our two young children. The burglars entered the house from the backyard through an unlocked window into our TV/family room (they scaled an 8-ft fence to get inside the backyard, cut the window screen, then slid open the window and climbed in). The flowerbed outside the window was muddy from the sprinkler system, so the intruders tracked mud throughout the house. As far as we can tell, they went straight to the master bedroom where my husband and I were sleeping. One set of footprints grabbed all of my jewelry boxes from my dresser, while the other went to my husband’s side of the bed and stood right next to his head (presumably in case he woke up). The intruders also ransacked our closet and took items from there.”

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The victim continues, “We never heard a sound and awoke around 6:45 a.m. to find the closet door open with the light on and ransacked; footprints in the house, including in our bedroom and right next to our bed; all my jewelry missing and the window open and the garage left open. Fortunately the tracks never went toward the kids’ rooms.”

According to the police report, the burglars made off with very expensive jewelry and a Dell laptop.

 

The Advocate has recently reported two middle-of-the-night burglaries in Lake Highlands.

 

This sounds frighteningly familiar, because in our May issue, crime writer Sean Chaffin wrote about an incident in the 10300 block of Ferndale.

In that case, while Kaye Partridge and her family slept, a burglar entered the back door, stole her purse and left all the lights on and the garage door open.

Partridge said that one cop told her these types of cat burglars like the thrill of people knowing they’ve been in their home. It would take a stealthy individual to pull off this type of thing. We could be looking at a pattern. It’s nighttime, so I will try to talk to an officer about this in the morning and, perhaps, have the police confirm my theory.

Meanwhile, keep those doors and windows secure. Maybe get a guard dog.