(continued from yesterday)......We were trying to settle down for the night, brainstorming ways we could afford a new door....should we just fix the door we have? Would we ever feel safe again? We have a security system that we pay for every month, it is perfectly adequate to keep us safe if we had been using it properly. That's when I saw it. On the bedroom wall, just above Jeremy's bedside table. A smear of blood. I don't remember my exact words, but I'll never forget that feeling of fear and paranoia so strong and so overwhelming that my heart was racing. I nervously giggled that perhaps we should call the police now. Jeremy confirmed that it was in fact blood and it had never been there before. He checked the wooden jewelry box where he keeps his 'important stuff' and realized that something was missing. Jeremy was the treasurer for his fantasy football league and had a rolled up wad of cash that would be the 'pot' at the end of the season for whomever won. It was $250 of cold hard loot, now missing. He cursed himself for not putting it in the bank, but thought it would be safest if he 'hid' it at home. At home, we wouldn't accidentally spend it and then be struggling to pay the piper right after Christmas. We scrambled out of bed and called the police. I did a much more thorough inspection of my underwear drawer, (and jewelry and medications). A detective came, our house had 2-3 cops looking around, which was creepy at 11:00 p.m. I felt totally invaded by strangers and unsettled. The detective swabbed the blood, taking a sample in a little vial. He said most likely the perp was on foot, looking for pills or cash, something he could easily stick in his pocket and be out the door. The thief hit the jackpot with us, and must've cut his hand or arm when reaching through the back window to open the door. If the intruder was a felon in the state of Missouri he would have DNA on file, but without a name to cross check the DNA with, it would be like a needle in a haystack. Also, the detective told us, the crime lab was really backed up....he had rape kits that were 18 months out...so it might be a couple of years before the blood gets processed. Our hopes were dashed. This was nothing like CSI on TV. If someone leaves behind a blood sample, then surely it would easy to catch the guy. We stayed up so late, our nerves were fried and we were so freaked out!!! This story happened in 2010. We never recovered the $250 but we did get a phone call from someone in the prosecutor's office about a year later. A man had been picked up with a big jar of change that he had stolen from a house in a neighborhood near ours. It was the same guy who had been in our house. He was a drifter, practically homeless and had several charges of petty breaking and entering on his record. We wanted to press charges, but nothing ever came of it.
We also got a new door and now we never forget to set the alarm on our house. Last year, we put in a keypad on the backdoor, so every time I enter the key code and go in without using my key, I think about that guy, busting in and wandering around. I remembered this story earlier this week when I was sitting at the stop light about a mile from home. I wondered if I had locked the door and set the alarm. I quickly checked the app on my phone, yep, the door was locked, but nope, the alarm wasn't set and I was able to set it with one quick click.
1 Comment
Julie Stover
3/27/2018 06:58:50 am
Oh Nellie, I would feel so violated. I'm glad the money was the only thing he took and that your whole house wasn't destroyed by that drifter...and he probably didn't think to smell your underwear!! ;)
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Mrs. Mitchell
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