PASADENA, Texas — A Pasadena mother is pleading with police to catch a thief she says ruined her family's Christmas.
While she was at a grocery store, security video showed a woman going inside her home and leaving with a trash can and backpack. The mother, who doesn't want to be identified, said they were filled with all her kids' Christmas gifts.
Pasadena police told KHOU 11's Matt Dougherty that a detective should be assigned to the woman's case in a few days, at which point they're hopeful it will be solved.
The mother said she had gone to the store to prepare for Noche Buena and Christmas the next day and had gotten home a little after 1 p.m.
"The first thing we did, we opened the front door and we see a pile of trash," she described.
There was trash on the floor, but no trash can. That's when she said she noticed the PlayStation was missing.
“I ran into my room and went into my drawer to see if my jewelry was there. Nothing was there," she said.
Then she went to her closet where she was keeping her kids' presents that still needed to be wrapped. Nearly all of them were gone.
"Nintendo Switches, a PlayStation, an iPad, AirPods, some Apple Watch," the woman described. "They just left the presents that only had candies inside."
To find out what happened, the mom pulled up her security camera video.
"We saw this girl park in our parking spot, taking the things out of our house," she said.
At first, the woman on the video appears to try and go through the front door, but it was locked.
"She jumps over the fence and from there, the camera captures, she went inside," she said, describing the video.
The alleged thief went through the side door that wasn't locked. After that, she can be seen making trips in and out of the house, putting things in her SUV.
"In the seven years we've lived in this house, we've never had anything like this happen to us," the mom said. "They were literally crying because they stole their Christmas. They took their things that they wanted. It was the day before Christmas, we couldn't get them back their stuff."
The mom said more than $15,000 worth of property was stolen.
"We worked so hard to get our things, especially for Christmas, because they wait all year long just for Christmas. So it's just not fair," she said. "It's not fair."
Now, the mother is pleading with police to catch the suspected, mostly because she doesn't want this to happen to another family.
"Get her. Get her as soon as they can because it already happened to our family. She's probably out there, keep doing it, doing to other people," she said.