Man trespasses into yard on Richmond Avenue.
Editor’s note: Our neighbor asked to remain anonymous in this story for safety reasons.
One family who lives on Richmond Avenue near Glencoe Street was out of town on Dec. 20. When they returned home, they saw muddy footprints in their backyard.
The family — a husband, wife and three young children — is having a pool installed and thought the crew working on their property had walked into the yard.
There would have been no reason for them to do that, and the yard was enclosed in a temporary wood fence while work was ongoing. But before they called the pool company, they checked out the security footage from that morning.
Around 7:15 a.m., they saw a man break off a piece of the wood fence and walk into the yard. He took a hat that was sitting outside, looked around and left.
In the four years they’ve lived here, they said they’ve seen some isolated incidents on social media but never really heard about this happening to their neighbors.
The homeowners shared the video and a description of the man on Nextdoor. Soon after, our neighbors heard reports that the man had been seen in the neighborhood many times before, including on that same morning. He had stolen packages and rang doorbells, they said.
Our Richmond Avenue neighbors alerted the police. They were told to call 911 if they ever see him again.
Many neighbors know package theft has been an issue in our area, especially in recent years. One porch pirate, Kelli Russell, stole thousands of dollars of goods from Lakewood and Highland Park residents around Christmas in 2017.
