Burglary - Part 2: The Investigation

After we had recovered a little from the trauma that someone had actually entered our house while we were sleeping and had taken things from our house and garage, we were naturally angry. We called the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office, the policing authority for Carmichael and asked to make a report. The desk clerk took just the barest of information - name, address, telephone number, and date of birth - then said a deputy would be out soon to get a report even after I assured him that it was no longer an emergency.

About a half hour later Deputy Galyean rang our front doorbell and asked me, "What's going on?" When I tried to give some background information he asked a little louder and firmer, "What's going on?" Direct man, this Deputy Galyean. So I answered directly, "Nothing. Now. Last night someone got into our garage and house and took several things." "How'd they get in." "We don't know for sure but we probably left the outside garage door unlocked. And the door between the house and the garage is always unlocked." "Probably got in that way, didn't they?" I said he was direct.

He gave me his card and a blue form to be filled out after we had figured out exactly what had been stolen. His card had the police report number on the back. Then as he walked out the door, he said the CSI unit would be out later in the afternoon.

Sure enough around 5:00 pm Officer Wight of the Crime Scene Investigation unit showed up and asked if he could take a look around. We gave him a brief orientation to where we suspected the theives had gotten in and where things appeared to be missing. By now we had the compiled a large list of things missing and presumed stolen:

Digital Picture Frame, 15",

Case of Diet Coke

Pop-up Shade 10x10ft w/ sidewalls

Ice Chest

VCR.DVD combo

Dome Tent - sleep 6

Dome Tent - sleep 4

Gallon bleach

2 Auto jumper batteries

Officer Wight opened his "crime kit" and started looking for any clues he might be able to gather.

He brushed several surfaces with a little brush that looked like it was made of flat strips of carbon paper. They were light enough not to make a real bad mess but heavy enough with black "ink" to show if there are liftable prints.

Thinking he might actually have one, Officer Wight showed me how he would try to lift it with a wide piece of tape, exactly like they show you on TV. Unfortunately, the surface was too rough to get a decent print.

In addition to notifying the police, we've notified most of our neighbors and our insurance agent. We figure the total loss from the items we know about now is about $1,000 and our deductible is $750 so we're not going to be making anything off this or even coming close to breakeven.

Like Staci, I too thought this might be a gag but it's gone too far for that now. We just hope we can remember all the missing pieces.