Burglar Entered Hillsborough Home While Mom Was Sleeping

HILLSBOROUGH, NJ — A Hillsborough woman is warning residents to lock their doors and set their alarms after someone came into her home in the middle of the night while she was sleeping.

It was the middle of the night on Tuesday when Teresa Mota was asleep in her bed inside her home on Pierson Drive. She awoke to hear someone inside her home.

“I didn’t think anything of it because my youngest son is in college at Rutgers in New Brunswick and still stops home without telling me,” Mota told Patch.

Mota says she was “more asleep than awake” lying in her bed with her bedroom door open. She was facing away from the door when she heard someone whisper, “She’s alone.”

Mota once again didn’t think anything of it since her son had come over unexpectedly last weekend with his girlfriend and assumed he was doing the same again. She thought her son was the one talking and commenting on how Mota’s boyfriend was not home.

When she woke up later that morning she noticed all three of the spare bedroom doors were open when she clearly remembers closing them.

“My sons were away at college and the dog likes to lay on the beds, so I know for a fact that I closed the doors,” Mota said.

She checked the rooms to see if her son was sleeping in one of the rooms and saw nothing. When she got to work she texted her son to ask about last night. That’s when he said he never came home.

Mota immediately called the police and they searched the home. They asked if the rooms had been ransacked, but Mota jokingly noted that she wasn’t sure since it was her boys’ rooms.

Mota’s son came home to check the rooms with police and found that his duffle bag had been riffled through and his Xbox video games were missing and the dresser drawers were open.

Police questioned the situation since Mota’s dog didn’t bark, but she added that her dog never barks.

She wasn’t scared at the time of the break-in but thinking back on it knowing a stranger was in her home just feet from her bed has scared Mota.

"Just a PSA to make sure that your doors are locked and if you have an alarm to actually set it," Mota said.

She noted she will never forget to lock her home’s doors or set the alarm again. Her boyfriend even came by to install motion sensor lights.

Hillsborough Police Lt. Mike McMahon confirmed police are investigating the incident and did not have any other reports of a burglary in this area.

“That being said, residents should be reminded to ALWAYS lock their vehicles and homes,” McMahon said.

(Image via Shutterstock)

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