Crime & Safety

Repeat Burglary Victim Conducts a Sting to Catch Her Nephew

When cash and prescription narcotics began to go missing from her home, woman enticed her next-door nephew into going to the well once too often.

A Wauwatosa woman did all the heavy lifting for the police when she suspected her nephew of repeatedly burglarizing her home to steal cash, set out $20 bait for him, and then extracted a confession after the money disappeared.

The 21-year-old was charged April 10 in Milwaukee County Circuit Court with burglary, a felony punishable by up to 12 years in prison.

Wauwatosa Patch is not naming the defendant or providing the location of the incident to avoid identifying the victim and other family members.

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The victim told police that by habit she kept cash in a kitchen cabinet, and beginning in January, the money started to vanish. Also, pills went missing from an old prescription bottle of Oxycontin.

The woman said that led her to suspect her nephew, who lives next door and, she said, is addicted to opiate narcotics. She wasn't sure, though, how he was getting in.

Find out what's happening in Wauwatosawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

When $200 disappeared from her cabinet on April 1, she'd had enough and decided to set up a trap.

She remembered, also, that she kept a spare house key under a fake rock outside the door. She removed it and put a $20 bill in the cabinet.

On April 6, the $20 was still there when, she said, her nephew paid a visit. The bill was gone after he left. She went next door and confronted him, she told police, and the young man admitted he'd been stealing from her to support his addiction.

She called police, and he gave investigators a full statement, confessing he was a drug addict and that he'd stolen all the money his aunt had been missing, as well as the pills.

He said he knew about the spare key and had taken it and had a copy made. Twice between April 1 and 6, he said, he had entered his aunt's home and found the $20 bill but hadn't taken it. He said he had a strong feeling that his aunt was on to him and that it might be a setup.

But, on April 6, he admitted, the lure of the money was just too great to resist.


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