It was three o’clock in the morning when Christopher Martin’s mother gave him the bad news.  Someone had broken into his car, right in front of his house.
     “My mother walked outside and saw that the doors, hood and trunk were wide opened,” Martin says.  “They even bypassed the alarm.”
     A portable radio, his work keys and a Rock Band video game accessory (a toy electric guitar) were stolen from his ’98 Saturn.
     Martin says that there were no visible signs of the damages such as broken windows or busted door locks. Martin speculated that the thief popped the trunk and somehow silenced his alarm.
     He got the car from his grandmother, Janie Barnett, who had considered trading it for a new car but let him drive it instead.
     “He throws a lot of things in the back seat,” Barnett says.  “He is the one who noticed that he was missing some things.”
     Martin who is a drummer in an actual rock band says that since the toy guitar went missing he spends more time working on his drum chops. Because he is the assistant manager at the video game store Game Stop, he says he will be able to purchase a new guitar for his birthday.
     Martin estimated that the value of the missing items came to about $210. His grandmother filed a report but says that police came out to investigate.
     Lt. Michael Woodbury of the Dallas Police says this burglar was more than just a take-and-run crook and it was likely someone that knew what he was doing.
     “This guy went into the trunk which isn’t normal,” Woodbury says. “Usually there is a window broken or a pry mark, and to disable an alarm isn’t common either. He could have gone into the trunk with seats that fold down.  My guess is through the trunk unless they had a key or a Slim Jim.”
     Woodbury says most thieves that steal things from cars just smash a window and leave but this thief had a lot of time to deactivate the alarm.
     “It took someone with a lot of nerve,” Woodbury says.