Laptop computers, purses, wallets and even a 50-inch plasma TV have been stolen this month from 15 different homes in a 2-mile-wide area of Jefferson County, authorities said Wednesday.
In many cases, the burglars broke in while residents were at home, either asleep or in their backyard.
The burglaries probably were committed by the same people, said Jim Shires, spokesman for the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.
“Many of the ways they entered the house are very similar,” he said.
The crimes, all since April 1, occurred in neighborhoods bounded by West Quincy Avenue, South Wads worth Boulevard, West Bowles Avenue and C-470, south of Bear Creek Lake Park.
More than half of the burglaries took place at night into the early morning.
Charles and Shannon Lewis, who live in the neighborhood, said they woke up to find their front door wide open. One of their four children noticed that a basement window, which had been left unlocked, had the screen cut off.
“My laptop, my husband’s BlackBerry and my son’s backpack were taken,” Shannon Lewis said.
The Lewis family has a security system but had not activated it the night they were burglarized.
Except for the big-screen TV, most of the items stolen were small and easy to carry, Shires said. “Anything left on kitchen counters, anything that might fit inside a pocket.”
Burglars gained entry into six of the 15 homes through open garage doors. At four homes, the thieves cut screens.
At two houses, the back door was forced open. One home was broken into through the rear sliding glass door, another through a broken basement window, and in one case a front door was forced open.
Shires said that most of the cases could have been prevented if residents had taken small steps to protect their homes.
“If people are not within sight of an open side door, it needs to be secured,” Shires said. “If you are mowing the lawn and the garage door is open, it only takes 10 seconds to walk up the driveway and leave. It’s that fast.”
A neighbor who lives near the Lewis family, but who did not want to be identified in case the burglars come back, said she found the screens on her windows cut, but the windows were locked. She said she walked around the neighborhood and “warned as many people as I could.”
Another neighbor, John Varndell, said he had recently received a note from the Sheriff’s Office about his open garage door.
“They wanted me to know it wasn’t a best practice,” he said.
In reporting the wave of burglaries Wednesday, the Sheriff’s Office called attention to its new online mapping software, which allows residents to look up crime in various neighborhoods.
