Two Homes Ransacked in Burglaries, Two Attempts Stymied

Residents of a home in the 2600 block of North 73rd Street reported Monday that between 10 and 10:53 a.m., someone entered their house through an unlocked second-story porch door and stole a very wide variety of property from throughout the home.

High-value goods including a Mac Book laptop computer, jewelry, video game systems with controllers and games, U.S. savings bonds and cash were stolen – but so were girls' clothing from the teenage daughters' room, a coat and two shirts from the couple's bedroom closet, shampoo, body wash and cologne from one dresser, and a razor and blades and a nose-hair trimmer from another.

Their two daughters, who had left the house together at 10, told officers they had seen a suspicious character on a bicycle who gave them a funny look while they were walking down their driveway.

Detectives said footprints found in the snow on the upper deck matched others found in the back yard and also appeared to match prints found at another burglary scene reported earlier in the 800 block of North 76th Street.

In that incident, the homeowner reported at 9:09 a.m. that he had just run off an intruder who he believed intended to break in to his home and who also arrived and left with a bicycle.

He had heard a “slapping” noise and gone to investigate. He saw an unknown young man at his back sunroom door, who also spotted him inside, grabbed a bicycle leaning against the house, hoisted it to his shoulder and took off running “like a jackrabbit.”

Police found that the plastic weather shield on the back door had been removed and the window cracked before the suspect was scared off.

Based on a composite of descriptions from witnesses in both incidents, police reported the subject to be a white male, 16 to 20 years old, 5-feet-6 to 5-feet-8-inches tall, 140 to 150 pounds, at the time wearing a gray hooded parka and dark pants.

There was no speculation in the report of the second, successful burglary how anyone using a bicycle might have carried off such a large trove of property if acting alone.

Parkway residents hit hard in break-in

A family living in the 4100 block of Menomonee River Parkway reported Thursday that between 7:33 a.m. and 3:35 p.m., their home was broken into and ransacked, with a large amount of property stolen.

They told police their daughter had called from a neighbor’s house after coming home from school to find the glass in the breezeway door shattered.

Police found that the storm door had been left unlocked, and that by breaking out the glass in the main door, the perpertrator was easily able to reach in to open the door lock.

Missing from rooms throughout the house were video game systems, a laptop computer, several music players, a cell phone, an e-reader and a number of pieces of men’s jewelry including the husband's wedding bands.

Police canvassed the area but no neighbors who had been home that day had seen or heard anything suspicious.

An ill-executed escape plan

At 7:14 p.m. Tuesday, Wauwatosa police were called to a home in the 2700 block of North 75th Street in Milwaukee for a tripped burglar alarm and found that the residence had been entered through an unlocked window.

Police were able to get a key from a neighbor and found that the burglar had fled after trying without success to steal a 40-inch flat screen TV.

Rather than just unlocking the door to leave, the genius had tried to climb back out the same small window he had come through, while carrying the TV. The TV wouldn’t fit, and it was left behind with only a few scratches and dings.

Nothing else was taken. The report did not say why an Wauwatosa officers were dispatched to an alarm at a Milwaukee address, although a look at the map shows that most of the rest of the homes in the block are in Wauwatosa.