Knock-Knock; If There’s No One Home, Criminals See Opportunity Knocking, Police Say

A Ferndale woman who reportedly knocks on doors on the pretense of having car trouble has been implicated in several area home burglaries.

“That’s typical behavior — walking up to a front door and knocking,” Hazel Park Police Chief Martin Barner told the Detroit Free Press. “If nobody answers, they break in.”

Jessica Hutchinson, 28, was charged with two counts of second-degree home invasion and is being held the Oakland County Jail after her arrest last week in Hazel Park. She has yet to post bail, set at $25,000 cash or surety bond.

Hutchinson reportedly knocked at a door in the 300 block of Goulson in Hazel Park shortly before noon last Wednesday and told the man who answered that her car had broken down. When he offered to call a cab, she left, leaving a suitcase she was toting on his porch.

The man reportedly thought the Hutchinson’s behavior was odd, so he watched her knock on a door across the street, then walk to the side door. When she retreated from the house, she had a bowl of popcorn and a camera on top of it.

The man called to her to retrieve her suitcase, which she did.

As she walked away, the man alerted police.

Police caught up with Hutchinson in the same neighborhood. Their inventory of the items in the suitcase – including a winter coat, prescription drugs, decorative glass, jewelry and the suitcase – tied her to recent home burglaries.