Crime & Safety
Vacationing Family Finds Home Ransacked
Residents who took an extended vacation arrived home late last week to find their house in shambles. Police said more than $30,000 worth of items were missing from the home, $20,000 of which was in the form of gold jewelry.
said someone ransacked a house on 66th Avenue while its residents were traveling for more than two months.
A family living in the 17900 block of 66th Avenue in arrived home Aug. 9 after leaving for a vacation May 31, according to the police report. The front door was found unlocked, police said, and the home was "significantly disturbed" and "overturned."
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Among the missing items were three Italian leather jackets, one trench coat and two children's winter jackets. The leather jackets were valued at about $1,100 each, a resident said.
Two glass and copper hookahs valued at $250 each, a Dell computer, a 22-inch computer monitor, a 46-inch plasma TV and a DVD player were also stolen. Police said a safe in the home's master bedroom had been emptied.
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It contained $6,000 cash, $20,000 in gold jewelry, birth certificates and Social Security cards. Police said there were no signs of forced entry to the safe.
A resident of the home said the only people who knew the family would be out of town were his two business partners. However, police said they learned during interviews that many neighbors knew they'd be gone.
One neighbor said he saw a man looking in the garage window about three weeks ago but didn't call the police.
Another neighbor, who was cutting the lawn at the home while residents were gone, said he noticed a second story window of the home open. He also said that on two separate occasions a white van and a black SUV were parked in the driveway for one day each. During the same time frame, a "shut-off notice" from the village was pinned to the front door, according to the report.
Another neighbor said that while she was smoking a cigarette about two weeks ago, she saw a man walking in the backyard of the victims' home. She said he told her he was from a Cook County mortgage company and was curious about when the family was returning home.
The burglary remained under investigation Aug. 13.
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