16-year-old Awakes To Male Suspect In Her Bedroom

BRIGHAM CITY, Utah – Police in Brigham City said they are concerned that a burglar has become increasingly brazen, walking into peoples’ homes while they sleep.

Vandy Crowther said her 16-year-old daughter was afraid to sleep in her own bedroom after she awoke to find a man shining a flashlight in her face early one morning.

Crowther said her daughter screamed, the man walked out, and she immediately received the first phone call.

“She said, ‘There’s a man in the house. He came all the way into my bedroom. I don’t know where he is,'” Crowther explained. “I’m a cop, so she didn’t think to call 911.”

Crowther was on shift at the time, with her own department at Weber State University. She raced home right away.

“All I’m thinking is, ‘I don’t know if he’s still in the home. I don’t know anything. All I know is somebody was just in my home,’” Crowther said.

Vandy Crowther says this man walked into her 16 year-old daughter's bedroom while she slept. Crowther also happens to be a WSU police officer. Hear why she and Brigham City police are concerned about the man's increasingly brazen behavior at several area homes. @KSL5TV at 5&6:30 pic.twitter.com/SMVKNieILC

— Mike Anderson (@mikeandersonKSL) August 5, 2019

Investigators with the Brigham City Police Department said they believed the same man got into about 18 cars and four homes.

In three of those homes, people were inside sleeping. In all of the cases, police said doors were left unlocked.

Officials released surveillance video on their Facebook page from one of the homes, where the man could be seen getting into a truck. That homeowner told KSL the suspect stole a jar full of change.

“We would highly encourage people to not leave valuables in their vehicles, lock their garage doors, (and) lock their home doors,” said Lt. Tony Ferderber. “Anything they possibly can, lock it up.”

Crowther’s concern was that the thief’s brazen behavior could end badly – for himself or someone else.

“What happens if somebody wants to fight him?” Crowther said. “What happens if he goes into the wrong home? It’s going to go violent. That’s just how it ends. You don’t break into peoples’ homes without it ending in some kind of violence.”

Ferderber said the burglar appears to be targeting neighborhoods in the northeast part of town.

Crowther has asked people in those neighborhoods to help, if they can, by getting more surveillance video to detectives.

“It doesn’t matter if you can’t identify him, or if he’s covered up and it doesn’t look like anybody can identify him,” Crowther said. “Every aspect of what he’s doing is a puzzle piece.”