ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. – Aaron Vilcek said it’s happened again: Suspects were captured on surveillance cameras pulling on car door handles in the middle of the night on Wickershire Lane in south St. Louis County.
“It’s that time of the year,” he said.
The surveillance images show four suspects entering a cul-de-sac. In the span of about a minute, they can be seen pulling on car door handles on several vehicles.
“They’re going to come across the wrong homeowner who’s going to confront these individuals,” Vilcek said. “You don’t want it to look like the wild west out here.”
He said the same crime occurred around the same time last year, but the suspects were caught.
“Last year when it happened, they broke into my Jeep in the garage,” Tom Tobin, another resident living on Wickershire Line, said.
He adds it’s a great neighborhood and finds it unnerving someone is trying to steal from residents in the middle of the night.
“The rummaging through and breaking into our vehicles seems to be occurring more often than we like,” he said.
Vilcek had headphones and some medication stolen from his unlocked SUV. He struggles over whether to lock his vehicle or not.
“You lock your car doors, and if they want to get in, they break your window,” he said. “If you keep it unlocked, at least they get in, see there’s nothing in there or not much, and then they move on.”
He thinks the suspects are juveniles, but vows to appear in court, requesting they be certified as adults if police make arrests.