A man posing as a city employee entered a residence last week
and allegedly stole jewelry from the home, according to Morgan Hill
Police Department Special Operations Sgt. David Swing.
Morgan Hill – A man posing as a city employee entered a residence last week and allegedly stole jewelry from the home, according to Morgan Hill Police Department Special Operations Sgt. David Swing.
It’s not clear if he was working alone or with an accomplice, police say.
Police officials want residents to know that it is against city policy for employees of the Public Works Department to enter a residence by themselves, Swing said.
“They should also have a clearly marked ID,” he added, urging residents to call the police department or the Department of Public works for verification If they believe the person trying to enter the home looks or acts suspicious.
Swing said the incident on June 29 began when a man came to the door of a home in the Jackson Oaks neighborhood and told the alone 89-year-old female that he needed to test the water quality.
“She brought him a water sample, then he told her he needed to check each individual faucet,” Swing said.
The woman at the home is the mother of the woman who owns the home who was at work at the time the man came to the door. When she arrived home from work later that evening and heard the story from her mother, she noticed some jewelry was missing and called the police department.
Swing said a similar incident was reported last October.
“It seems in this case, the person portraying himself as someone connected to the city was with the elderly woman the whole time, distracting her while possibly an accomplice entered the house and stole several items,” he said.
According to the report, Swing said, the residence targeted in the other case was on Tilton Avenue, north of Morgan Hill. A woman in her late 80s, who was also home alone, was approached by a suspect, described as a white man in his 40s or 50s, who wanted to test the water. They first went into the backyard, the woman told police, then he wanted to check her kitchen sink and asked her to keep the water flowing. Swing said the woman told police the man stayed with her the whole time, but after he left, she found several things missing from the house, so the man may have been working with an accomplice.
“We can’t say for sure these two incidents are related, for one thing because of the time issue,” Swing said, referring to the length of time between the two. “We can’t speculate that the suspect or suspects may have learned the two elderly women would be home alone, we can’t say they were targeted for that reason, but certainly there is that similarity to the cases.”
Swing said local police authorities want to get the word out to the public to be on the lookout for similar schemes.
“Always ask for that ID, and if someone wants to test the water, they will not ask to come in to the house by themselves.”
