How A Ruse Burglary Happened In Burr Ridge

BURR RIDGE, IL — In the early evening of July 17, a man showed up at a house in the 100 block of Stirrup Place claiming to be a village water department employee, Burr Ridge police said. The man told the residents they had a problem with their water and that he needed to check it.

The man then told the victims to stay in the kitchen with the water running and wait until it turned blue, according to a police report that Patch obtained through a public records request. The victims told police that the man spoke on a two-way radio, but in a language other than English.

Shortly after the man left, the residents checked their house and noticed jewelry and other items missing from an upstairs bathroom.

They described the man as 30 years old with dark hair, about 5 feet, 8 inches tall, having an average build and wearing work clothes with a reflective vest over his clothes.

The case remains under investigation, police said.

Such announced visits from the water department do not happen, said David Preissig, the village's public works director. Appointments would be made ahead of time and employees wear clothing that indicates they are with the village and drive in vehicles with village markings, he said.

"We would always have village-issued identification," he said in an interview.

Preissig said if a water main breaks, an employee may knock on doors to inform residents, but would not need to go inside houses.

The recent crime is known as a ruse burglary in which one person distracts the homeowner while another enters the house and commits theft.

Three days after the Burr Ridge burglary, a man showed up at a Western Springs resident's door and posed as a landscaper. He asked the resident, an 83-year-old woman, to go into her backyard, so they could discuss a neighbor's landscaping project's effects on her yard, police said. Like in the Burr Ridge case, the woman heard the man speaking into a two-way radio, but could not make it out.

The woman later discovered personal documents stolen, police said.