CLEVELAND, Texas – A soldier and his wife returned to their home in Cleveland Friday to assess the damage done by a couple of squatters living in their house.
Samuel Burbank just came back to Texas from his third deployment in Iraq and picked up his wife, Holly, who was living in Fort Hood.
When they got home, what they found broke their hearts. Squatters had moved in and started selling the Burbank’s belongings. Among the stuff they sold were some family heirlooms and dishes handed down from Mrs. Burbanks’s grandmother.
Now it seems there’s little chance they’ll get their property back.
“I felt sick to my stomach, said Hollie Burbank. “It made me cry because they took a bunch of my grandma’s stuff that’s sentimental to me. And they might not have cared about it, but I sure did.”
Two people have been arrested in connection with the case.
Authorities say they were using methamphetamines while they lived in the Burbank’s home. Firefighters helped clean up and sort through the stuff left out in the yard.
Liberty County Sheriff’s officials helped set up a fund to aid the family’s efforts to replace their missing belongings.
