My Story: Lawyer Has Her House Broken Into, Identifies the Burglars and Gets a Compensation

09/01/2015 - 10h09

It was a Carnival Sunday, March 2, 2014. We left home at around 2.30 pm to visit a sick relative.

When we returned, we saw two police cars on the doorstep. We just thought: it must be an accident. But the pedestrian gate was broken into. When we entered the house, everything was overturned.

It was a moment of terror. All things kept in the drawers were on the ground, overturned.

They had taken our three computers, iPad, iPods, clothes, watches, perfumes and jewellery.

I started to investigate it the next day. I knocked on the neighbors´ doors asking for their security camera images because our camera wasn´t working the day of the crime.

I watched those images frame by frame trying to visualize important details. I could identify the people who entered my house and then I printed the images.

After that, I passed on this material to the security teams working on the nearby streets, to my neighbors and to the police. We began to pay attention to people who were similar to the burglars.

On April 18, my husband saw a man on the street wearing the same clothes worn by the burglars in our home.

He called the police, who came quickly and approached the man. Meanwhile, a neighbor called the police because her house had been invaded.

Through the images took from her home, we saw that the housebreakers were the same who had broken into ours. The man was arrested at the scene and, from then on, more information started to come out.

I made a relentless investigation on social networks, search websites and in the court about the arrested housebreaker´s name. As I had the face and the nickname of the second burglar, something that police had given me, I could find him on a social network.

In one of his photos, he was wearing one of my husband's shirt.

I found the burglar´s address and passed it on to the police. He was arrested and, at his home, a pistol was also found.

The two burglars confessed the crime. One of them was sentenced to 2 years and 6 months in prison and the other to 3 years and 8 months. Both of them had criminal records for burglary.

After the crime, I almost had a panic disorder. You end up having an insecurity feeling after a stranger breaks into your house and scours your privacy.

We put grids on all the windows. My 11-year-old daughter questioned why burglars have stolen us and we are the ones who have to get as a captive inside home. She is still under psychological treatment.

We recovered very few things because they had already sold all of them. Our computers had valuable and sentimental things. In July, my mother-in-law died and there we had pictures and videos that we will never see again.

But, as a way of proving the missing belongings, I had a file with receipts of purchase and the cables of the equipment they had taken.

I made a detailed spreadsheet with pictures and data of what had been stolen and presented it to the judge. He decided to convict them for property damage worth R$ 100,000 (approximately $ 27,570).

As it is less violent, theft ends up being treated with less priority by the police. But the victim can help. At no time we took the law into our own hands. We only collaborated with information.

I learned that you should not leave anything stored. If you win a special liquor and want to leave it for a special occasion, the occasion is the day you´ve won it. Nor should keep jewellery in a jewel case. This is the place where burglars look first.

Translated by DENISE MOTA

Read the article in the original language

	Zanone Fraissat/Folhapress
	A lawyer has her house broken into, identifies the burglars and gets a compensation