CHICAGO — Police in Skokie, Ill., on Thursday were still looking for a burglar who broke into a home and then repeatedly apologized for the crime to a woman who happened to be home.
He promised to call her and tell her where he was pawning the jewelry he was stealing so she could get it back, police said.
The 43-year-old woman told police that when she walked into the bedroom of her home around 8 a.m. on Aug. 27, she was confronted by a man holding a 16-inch-long pry bar, police said. The man reportedly told the victim he wasn’t going to hurt her. “I don’t want to do this, but I haven’t had a job for so long, and I have three children to support,” he said, according to police.
The intruder asked the victim for jewelry and money. Police gave the following account: The victim took jewelry from a safe in the bedroom closet. When she told the man it belonged to her mother, he said: “Why did you have to tell me this was your mother’s jewelry?”
When the intruder asked what was in another bedroom, the victim told him it was her 16-year- old daughter’s bedroom.
“I won’t touch anything in here since I have three children of my own and I wouldn’t want anyone to mess with them,” he said.
Police said the intruder tied the victim’s arms and wrote down her cellphone number. He said he wanted to call her and tell her where he had pawned her mother’s jewelry. After he left, the woman freed herself and discovered that two cameras and a laptop were also taken.
