Posted at: 09/19/2012 5:21 PM
By: Dan Conradt
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Email to a FriendAustin Police Investigating Home Burglaries
(ABC 6 NEWS) -- Few things would be more frightening, you arrive home to find a stranger in your house.
Austin police say it happened twice in a matter of hours, and now they're reminding you to keep your doors locked.
The first incident happened just after noon Tuesday in the 900 block of 7th street Northwest when a 44-year-old woman stopped home for lunch.
"She found a teenaged black male in her residence," said Austin Police Chief Brian Krueger.
The teen was sitting in the woman's living room, and she had no idea who he was.
"And then he ran out the door that she came in," Krueger told us.
7 hours later and 18 blocks away, it happened again.
"A gentleman came home and noticed a light on in one of the bedrooms," Krueger said.
When the home owner went to investigate: “He saw a black male again matching the description from the earlier incident climbing out a bedroom window."
“It's a big violation. You feel invaded," a woman named Lana told us.
Lana lives mid-way between the sites of the two break-ins, and she asked us not to use her last name. And she knows what the home-owners are feeling right now: “Last spring my house was broken into."
The burglar got into the house through a window that had been cracked open while Lana was gone.
“And broke a lot of fine glass, broke a florescent light in my bathroom ... I had glass everywhere," Lana recalled. “I had some chocolate ice cream in a half gallon and that was laying on the floor all melted in a puddle."
And before the burglar left Lana's home with a jar of coins: “He went into my freezer and got out a package of Chinese egg rolls and cooked them and rank a bottle of wind, so he was here for quite a while."
Police believe the break-in at Lana's house happened in the middle of the night. This weeks' break-ins did not.
"This is quite brazen for someone to enter during broad daylight" said Austin Police Chief Brian Krueger.
“I had a hard time getting over it," Lana told us, recalling her own burglary. “I walk down the hallway and keep checking my windows, making sure they're locked."
Investigators could use your help. If you know anything about the break-ins, you're asked to contact the Austin police department
