Dog Sitter Caught Burglarizing Home, Deputies Say

Coming home to find a stranger peeking out of the front door is generally not a sign of good things to come.

That turned out to be so for a Sarasota family Wednesday morning. According to the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office, a man, his wife and daughter drove up to their home on Lords Drive around 9:45 a.m. As they approached, they happen to notice a strange Cadillac in the drive and a person peeking out the front door.

The husband, an arrest report stated, entered his home and found a 25-year-old woman in the dining room. When he asked the woman what she was doing, she said she was returning his dog, the report said. The woman then tried to leave, but the man blocked her. The woman managed to force her way through the front door and tried to get into her car, but the man was able to take her keys away, deputies said.

At that point, the woman is accused of pulling a laundry basket out of her back seat of her car and trying to hand it to the couple.

“Here, you can have this back,” the woman allegedly told them. The basket was full of the couple’s belongings.

The wife then tried to lock the woman out of her car, the arrest report said, and the woman started hitting her and her husband.

The husband managed to pin the woman on the ground while deputies were called to the scene.

Once deputies and the couple were able to check out the home, they found another laundry basket packed with the family’s belongings. That basket, however, hadn’t made it to the woman’s car, the report said.

Melissa J. Lee was charged with burglary with battery, simple battery, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia. It seems deputies also found a small bag of marijuana and a pipe in her car.

She was being held at the Sarasota County Jail Wednesday in lieu of $21,500 bond.

Lee told deputies she works as a self-employed dog sitter and house cleaner, according to the arrest report.

Both the husband and wife suffered minor injuries and the husband’s glasses were broken during the incident.

Photo courtesy of the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office