Police Blotter: Elderly Woman Wakes to Find a Stranger in Her Bedroom

responded to a home invasion in progress after they received a call from a 77-year-old woman who said she woke at about 2 a.m. to find someone standing near her bed at her home in the 2100 block of Harrison Avenue.

The woman told police the person did not turn around and she could only see that the person was under 6 feet tall, thin build and wearing a light-colored hooded sweatshirt.

She said she was sleeping in her bedroom and woke up to find an unknown person standing at the end of her bed going through a jewelry box.

The woman yelled, “Hey, what are you doing here?” and the person fled down the stairs and out the front door. The woman then ran to a phone across the hall and phoned police. As she made the call she looked out her window, facing Harrison Avenue, and saw someone in a car parked on Glenwood Street turn the headlights on and drive east onto Harrison, leaving the area.

Police said they there was a fresh set of footprints in the wet grass. Police conducted a track with K-9 Truax from the residence to Harrison and ended at Glenwood immediately after arriving at the scene.

Police searched the residence for an entry point and found someone had pried open a rear garage entry door and the door from the garage into the residence. The screen from the rear door from the backyard into the garage had been cut and the gate along the east side of the house was open.

Police found a plastic water bottle sitting against the garage door at the front of the residence that “did not appear to have been there very long.”

The woman told police there did not appear to be anything missing out of the house and the jewelry box did not contain any expensive jewelry.

The woman’s medication, which was out on the kitchen counter, was not disturbed.

The water bottle and six photographs taken by police were tagged and logged into evidence.

For questions on the blotter, email natestemen@patch.com.