A woman from New Albany, Indiana has learned the hard way to be careful what she posts on Facebook. Her status post led to the burglary of her home by one of her own Facebook friends.
Excited to go to a concert with her fiancé, Kurt Pendleton, Keri McMullen set as her Facebook status, “Heading to the hill with Kurt to see Fire Department.” What she did not realize was she just told a burglar when her house would be empty. All a thief had to do is call to see when the band would be playing and when the concert would be over. While McMullen was enjoying the concert with her fiancé, her home was being burglarized.
Luckily, six days before the burglary, McMullen had installed security cameras. One camera was outside while the other was set up in the living room. When McMullen and her fiancé returned home to find out they had been robbed, they watched the security footage. The tape showed the two burglars ripping their 50-inch plasma television off the wall. Pendleton, the fiancé, said, “You see him just manhandle it and rip it off the wall, with all the drywall falling down.”
After reporting the robbery to the police, McMullen posted snapshots and footage from the security cameras onto her Facebook page. A couple hours later, she received a message from one of her friends that recognized one of the two burglars.
Pendleton recalled, “Someone contacted Keri and said, ‘I know who that is, and so do you. He’s one of your friends.’”
McMullen’s Facebook friend, Shaun South, had broken into her home and stolen her property. She said that she had been friends with South when they were seven years old but it had been over twenty years since she had last seen him. “Once I went into his page and saw all his pictures and started looking, then, I mean, he has the same posture. It’s definitely him,” McMullen said.
Sheriff Darrell Mills, who investigated the case, said, “You don’t know who all is looking at your private info there because it’s really not private if you’re on Facebook.”
The burglars stole $11,000 worth of property from McMullen’s home. McMullen said that she would have de-friended South but he had already deleted his Facebook page.
Sources:
http://www.theindychannel.com/news/24537182/detail.html
http://www.fox11online.com/dpps/news/strange/woman-burglar-was-my-facebook-friend-_3534594
Photo Source: http://students.washington.edu/wocc/?page_id=116
