Female Porch Pirate Gets Unwanted Spotlight: Watsonville Police

WATSONVILLE, CA — A brazen move in broad daylight has made its rounds on social media. Now, a Watsonville resident is sharing her story to warn others about a crime seen too often during the holidays — package thefts.

“Here you can see when they’re actually pulling up all the way in,” Connie Vazquez says, as she walks Watsonville police through the home surveillance footage from earlier this month. "She takes two packages and then comes back for the other two.”

Vazquez said it took about 30 seconds for a young woman to snatch four packages that had been delivered to her porch. The second half of the video shows the woman getting in the passenger side of a white/silver Nissan SUV, which then pulls out of the driveway and leaves the area.

“First we actually laughed. We’re like, ‘what, like really?’ This really happened. We saw it again and I showed my husband and yeah, they really took them,” Vazquez said. “It’s just upsetting because we should be looking out after each other."

The Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office is working to track down the porch pirate and her getaway driver.

Aside from having a surveillance system set up outside your home, Watsonville police said there are other ways to protect yourself from holiday thieves: have packages delivered to work, schedule a delivery, buddy up with a neighbor or require a signature, explained Watsonville Police Detective Gustavo Zamora.