HEBRON – State Police are searching for the man caught on camera walking into a Hebron home and stealing several Christmas presents.
The burglary was caught on the Senate Brook Drive home’s surveillance system cameras Thursday.
“I was getting all these text messages that someone was in my house,” Maria McKeon told FOX 61 Tuesday.
McKeon, a lawyer, was at court during the burglary. Her phone was off at the time. The text messages from her security camera system started rolling in after she turned her phone on and was headed to Pennsylvania to take her daughter to college.
“I thought it was my neighbor because I had asked him to put any packages that came in the house for safety reasons because we keep seeing it on the news,” McKeon said.
When she saw the video of the burglar on her phone, she knew it wasn’t her neighbor.
“As soon as I saw it I called my neighbor and asked him to go over,” McKeon said, “he went over there and said ‘your door is wide open and all your packages are gone.’”
Video showed the man walk in, pick up packages, and walk out.
McKeon said the man took six trips inside her home to take packages and her entire jewelry box.
“He apparently went out to a vehicle or something, but it took him awhile so he may have had the vehicle at the bottom of the driveway.” Her cameras didn’t catch the vehicle. “I didn’t have it aimed outside, which I wish I had.”
The burglar didn’t have to look hard for the packages.
“I had ordered everything on Black Friday online,” McKeon explained, “I had them all piled up in the front hallway as they came every day.”
Those gifts weren’t only for McKeon’s family, they were also for a needy family in New London.
“There’s four little kids ages ten, five, three and a newborn,” McKeon told FOX 61. “The mom has no money for gifts, she can’t even make her car payment.”
Hebron bakery, Something Simple Cafe, offered to start a fundraising effort to replace the gifts, McKeon wants all of those benefits to go to her adopted family. “I asked them instead of giving it to me to give it to this family that we were trying to support,” she said.
“Rather than letting this Grinch take Christmas away from me, I’d rather see this community come out and support this family because the spirit of Christmas can be passed on through all of this.”
McKeon is also hoping her community can identify the man who stole the presents, so he can be stopped from doing it again.
“He was completely casual when he went through my house. He wore gloves. He knew exactly what he was doing and he apparently knew I was not home,” Mckeon said. “I don’t know if he was watching me or what.”
The burglary happened between 12:50 and 1:00 p.m. on December 6 on Senate Brook Drive.
Anyone with information is urged to contact State Police Troop K at (860) 465-5400. Tips can be made anonymously.
