Jennifer Gurley arrived home on a cold afternoon.
She had left work early because of the incoming ice storm, and was relieved when she arrived to her cozy adobe.
Gurley had walked through the garage and into the kitchen to let out her two crated dogs, beagle mix Bailey and Australian shepherd Bella. She says the door to their room was shut, which wasn’t normal. Thankfully, they were unharmed.
“I was in a good mood and turned around and saw the TV missing,” Gurley says. “I grabbed the phone and called 911. That’s when I started to lose it. I felt violated.”
Thieves had made it through the front door by breaking the lock and the door jam. They grabbed Gurley’s HDTV off her wall, and took her Nintendo Wii system that she uses for personal fitness. They even ransacked her bedroom and closet.
“If they were looking for jewelry, I don’t have any,” Gurley says. “I don’t know if they took anything else from what was on the police report. My neighbor was home all day and didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.”
After she made the call to the police, Gurley then called a friend and her parents to help calm her nerves.
“The police took a report and sent out a crime investigation team,” Gurley says. “They did some fingerprinting but I don’t know if they found anything.”
Her parents drove in from their house roughly an hour away to help board up the broken door. A contractor came by after the roads cleared up from the ice storm to fix the broken door and lock.
Damages and loses were estimated at $1,750, and this was the first time that Gurley has ever been the victim of a crime. She does have a hunch about why she was targeted.
“I think people were casing the neighborhood and saw that I just got a new satellite dish receiver put on my roof the previous Saturday,” Gurley says, “but I don’t know if there is a connection.”
Lt. Gloria Perez of the Dallas police says there is really nothing that Gurley could have done differently, except perhaps install a burglar alarm system or mark her property with an identification code.
“This makes it difficult to pawn the property,” Perez explains.
Gurley did have the ID code for the Wii, but says the thieves didn’t take the infamous Wii controllers or any of the cables that connect to the HDTV. A manager from a local Game Stop says all thieves have to do is buy new cables and another controller to make it operational.
Perez also suggest canvassing other neighbors on Gurley’s street as well as behind her house to see if they witnessed anything.
