Female burglars caught in the act claim to be house cleaners
Community members say the pair has been linked to other recent crimes and may be targeting Asian households. Police are investigating.
A Berkeley woman who was working from home Friday interrupted two burglars breaking in, scaring them off before they could take anything.
The burglars, who claimed to be cleaners at the wrong house, have been linked by residents to at least two other recent incidents — a home burglary in San Jose and a break-in attempt in El Cerrito.
Footage shared on NextDoor and KRON4 helped make the connection between the crimes.
The Berkeley resident, who asked to remain anonymous, said she was home Friday when she heard banging on her front door at about 4:30 p.m.
She didn't answer the door because she couldn't break away from a work meeting and wasn't expecting anyone.
Her neighborhood, on Martin Luther King Jr. Way between Ohlone Park and Cedar Street, is typically safe, she said. She's lived there for more than 15 years.
The banging out front soon stopped, but then the woman heard banging on her back door.
At that point, she thought her husband might have forgotten his key, she said.
When she went to investigate she found two strangers, both women, standing inside her mud room. Surprised, she asked who they were.
The women acted confused and said they must have gotten the wrong house for their cleaning assignment.
Then they left, heading south on MLK toward Trader Joe's.
That's when the resident noticed that her dead bolt was hanging off the door and realized the women had broken in. She quickly grabbed her camera and took a photograph as they left, but it didn't capture their faces.
The resident said she was so shocked by what happened that she went back to work before calling police. Officers came later to take a report and fingerprints.
Police told her the burglars might have been drawn to the house by a Chinese New Year sign that was posted outside.
Similar Chinese New Year decorations were posted on a home in San Jose where two women matching the Berkeley descriptions took $16,000 in jewelry and cash during a recent burglary.
San Jose residents Yuan and Jake Petroules described to KRON4 how the women had broken into their safe and taken their wedding rings as well as a gold necklace that had been a graduation present.
The couple's Nest security footage showed one of the women kicking aside the couple's small dog, Niko, on her way inside.
The couple said the women had been spotted around the area and that police had mentioned other burglaries in the neighborhood as well.
And Petroules told The Scanner on Monday that his wife, who is Chinese, had wondered if their Chinese New Year decorations might have attracted the burglars.
Jack Molmud
The Berkeley woman told The Scanner she had taken down her Chinese New Year sign after being advised by police that some thieves target Asian homes because of stereotypes about valuables inside.
On Friday after the burglary, she said she had come across a NextDoor post from another North Berkeley resident who had captured the same women prowling outside his parents' home in El Cerrito that same day.
The whole series of events had left her shaken, she said.
"It just feels really bold to be doing this in the middle of the day," she said, including hitting another house in the area after having just been caught in the act. "We just want others to be vigilant, whether it is or is not targeted toward a certain community."
The woman, who was also the victim of a hate crime in San Francisco in December where a stranger attacked her from behind at a MUNI station, said she and her husband were now looking at other security measures they might put in place.
"All of these things start to feel like, is this where we want to live?" she said.
On Monday, The Scanner also spoke to the North Berkeley resident who posted the NextDoor video of the women prowling outside his parents' home near El Cerrito High School on Friday at about 5:30 p.m.
He said the women had walked up an alleyway alongside the house and that one of them had tapped on the windows.
"It looked a little weird," he said. "They didn't look like contractors. I didn't know what they were doing."
Ring camera footage from the prowlers in El Cerrito shortly after the Berkeley burglary. Scanner Insider
Fortunately, the man's parents were out when the women came by.
When he drove to the house to take a closer look, he found a latch on their wooden gate that had been ripped off. Nothing else seemed to have been taken or damaged.
The man said he believed that a heavy chain that secured the gate at the other end of the alley had likely stopped the women from getting inside.
He said there's also an alarm at the property and that, since Friday, he's made sure the signage about the alarm and security cameras is more visible than it was before.
The man said his parents do have a Japanese garden out front as well as some anime figures on display. But he said non-Asian households might be just as likely to have similar features.
"I think the thing that might have caught their eye was access," he said, adding that the solid wooden gate on the property might have provided good cover, along with some nearby trees — which his parents have already trimmed back.
His brother-in-law had given him the idea to post the Ring camera footage on NextDoor, which is how community members drew the connections between El Cerrito, the Berkeley case and the San Jose news report.
He said the boldness the women displayed had been of particular concern to him.
"I'm just worried," he said. "It's only a matter of time before they encounter somebody at home at the wrong time."
