Residents in the North River Shores neighborhood in Stuart are being told to lock their doors and be on guard after multiple home invasions have been reported in nearly two weeks.
According to incident reports from the Martin County Sheriff’s Office, the break-ins happened at homes on NW 14th Terrace, NW 20th Avenue and NW River Terrace.
Money and golf clubs were among the items that were stolen.
Three home owners also reported attempted break-ins in the last two weeks on NW Fork Road, Pine Lake Drive and NW Lake Place.
One car burglary was reported on NW Fork Road and guns were stolen.
Martin County Sheriff William Snyder sent a Code Red call to North River Shores residents last week warning them to be careful. The message said in part, “Good afternoon. This is Martin County Sheriff William Snyder with an important message for residents…. Unfortunately we have received two reports of occupied burglaries in the north river shores community.”
Snyder says he only sends Code Red messages to residents if he feels there is an urgent need to inform the public about a public safety risk.
Detectives have linked two of the burglaries to one suspect, but do not know yet if that suspect is tied to other attempted burglaries, or a third successful burglary.
The crimes happened at various hours of the day, but mainly in the evening, night and early morning.
Ken Haines says someone tried to break into his house along Pine Lake Drive around 7 PM on May 25th.
He says his 14-year-old son was home alone at the time.
“To think what would have happened if he actually got in that time of day,” said Haines.
His son, Fede, says he heard their bird making a lot of noise. He looked over at the bird’s cage and saw someone in the window behind the bird trying to pry his way into the back door.
“I saw the man coming in with a crow bar, I felt a little nervous and went to look for the golf club,” Fede said.
He grabbed a golf club from another room. By the time he came back, he said the man was running away across the nearby golf course.
Fede says he’s not scared, but he is being watchful.
Other reports show most people were home during the time of the attempted break-ins and sleeping.
The sheriff is urging people to lock their doors, remain alert and call 911 if you see anything suspicious.
Detectives are working on developing suspect descriptions, but say they did get pictures of one of the suspects from surveillance video.
The suspect was wearing a light colored Washington Redskins sweatshirt in two of the the burglaries.