Woman Loses Lifetime Collection of Jewelry to Burglary

A Wauwatosa woman with a passion for fine jewelry lost a trove of it when her home was broken into while she took her daughter to a movie matinee.

The resident of the 7100 block of Lloyd Street told police she usually is home all day but decided on July 3 to take her daughter to lunch and an afternoon show at Mayfair Mall.

When they returned about 4 p.m., she found that the back door opened without her key, whereas she knew it had been locked when they left. When they went inside, she saw that gates she uses to keep her two dogs from going upstairs had been moved.

In the kitchen, various items had been moved around, and a number of pieces of jewelry were missing. She looked through the rest of the house before calling police and found evidence of burglary in every room – closets and drawers open and clothing and other property thrown around.

Police found that a locked living room window had been forced open, the lock broken and dents in the exterior molding. A chair just inside the window was covered with mud.

Besides a large amount of jewelry that the homeowner had been collecting for more than 20 years, she was missing cash, a box of checks, a laptop computer  and various legal and financial documents.

The number of pieces lost to the woman went on more than a single-spaced page.

Police canvassed the neighborhood but found no one who had been home who had seen or heard anything suspicious.

According to Wauwatosa Police Department records, burglaries in the city were down 22 percent through early July compared to the same date last year; however, there has been a recent spate of incidents, many likely related, and citizens are urged to be on the lookout for suspicious behavior.