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Burglar broke in while woman, son slept

Posted at 5:09 PM, May 12, 2016
and last updated 2016-05-12 18:36:41-04

MIDDLETOWN, Ohio – A man broke into a home while a woman and her son slept inside, and a surveillance camera caught the woman’s near encounter with the burglar on video.

Police said the thief entered through a basement window. Upstairs, Michelle Moore and her son were asleep. Moore’s boyfriend, Rodney Heard, was at work.

Heard happened to have installed surveillance cameras a week earlier. The camera caught the man searching through their kitchen.

 

“I feel violated,” Moore said. “I feel unsafe. He was looking through my kitchen drawers. Was he looking for a knife? What was he looking for?”

Police said the man is about 6’ tall with glasses, and was wearing a baseball cap and white or gray hoodie.

Moore ignored the sound of their five dogs barking at first, thinking Heard was home. But the barking continued, so she went down to the kitchen.

Sensors showed Moore came down about a minute after the thief left.

“I got back up and opened the basement door, and that’s when I discovered my purse and all its belongings scattered down the steps,” she said.

The man had walked up to her bedroom and taken her purse.

He made of with $18 and a can of soda. He may have also left a neon orange Nike basketball shoe behind. He hasn't been identified.

“This is my home, and now I don’t feel that way anymore,” Moore said. “I can’t sleep.”

In cases like this, the burglar will often knock on the front door first to see if anyone is home, then break in through the back, police said. Anyone who hears the sound of a stranger in their home should call police, and anyone who sees the burglar should describe what they’re wearing to the dispatcher, police said.