ROANOKE, Va. – Early Monday morning, Karen Willaims was just getting into her house when she got the alert on her phone that her doorbell camera had picked up on something.
What she saw gave her a major shock.
“I was going into my house, it was 9:20, my Ring systems went off in the backside immediately,” Williams said. “I went to my phone to view it, and I saw a guy, he had come through the backside, he was trying to break into the shed.”
When the shed didn’t open, the man tried a different approach, going after her daughter’s car that was parked on the street before eventually scampering off throughout the neighborhood.
Have the day's biggest stories arrive in your inbox every day at 8 p.m.
“From the shed, he went to the pink car and then from the pink car, he would cross the street to my neighbor’s house,” Williams said. “From there, he ducked behind the garbage cans, and he tried to get into one of my neighbor’s vehicles, and he couldn’t get in, so he went back around the house and he left.”
The Roanoke City Police Department eventually came by to investigate the scene and ask Williams questions about the attempted break-in. Forensics also stopped by to take fingerprints.
Break-ins like this can shatter someone’s sense of security, which is why the entire neighborhood has each other’s backs.
“It makes you sleep with one eye open. We’re constantly checking our cameras, and it makes you look out the windows and everything. Like I said, we talk,” Williams said. “Our neighbors, we all have each other’s numbers and phone numbers. We’ve been looking out for each other, calling each other and checking on each other.”
