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Seniors Warned To Be On The Lookout For "Early Bird Special" Burglar
By Bill McLaughlin
Seniors should be cognizant of a threat which could be looming in their neighborhoods right now, according to the Ocean County Prosecutor.
Speaking to an audience in Berkeley last week, Marlene Lynch Ford, of the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office, said that a Senior Crimes Task Force, headed by Ocean County Police Sergeant Candy Boyd, was after a suspect who is only known as "the early bird special" burglar.
The lone criminal generally hits senior communities in late afternoon or early evening, roughly between 5 and 8 p.m., when seniors are away from their homes, often out shopping or eating dinner at local restaurants, Ford told the audience.
These are not home break-ins where people are present. Instead, the thief or thieves studies the victims' habits and waits for a regular time and day when the homeowner is usually away from home.
This thief has worked a wide swath of Central New Jersey, from Monroe Township in Middlesex County to Little Egg Harbor at the southern tip of Ocean, according to police.
"It's an on-going, active investigation," Ford said. "It has not panned out to anything specific. We discuss this on a daily basis, if not more often."
Senior residents have been complaining to local police for more than a year that burglars have been hitting their unlocked cars parked in their own driveways. To help deter break ins, Ford recommends always being sure to lock your car doors, or better yet, park your vehicle in a garage at night.
One such thief was caught a few weeks ago, but the breadth of the criminal bag of tricks keeps evolving.
During the summer, the widow of a New York City police officer had the experience of someone knocking on her door with an overnight freight package she didn't order. The man then tried to push his way into the home. He was never caught.
Now comes word that a scam perpetrated on the Internet might target solitary, frail seniors. A Manchester man told police he had been contacted by "a man named Eddie" who said he was a "hit man" with a commission to take him out, but Eddie was willing to walk away from the hit if the man would e-mail about $8,000.
"There's been a proliferation of scams," Ford told the audience. "Many come over the Internet, saying if you send X amount of money, they'll call off the hit on him. Some people out of fear have turned over money to these people."
The real scams are old perennials, like having someone call as a bank representative researching the target's credit history.
"If you send your bank account numbers and other information to an Internet site, the bank will be able to prevent scams," Ford said. "You know that 99.9 percent of the time it's going to be a scam. The bank already has that information when you open an account."
Ford said the other long-time bugaboos are the many types of contractor scams which prey on unsuspecting seniors, either by doing substandard, shoddy work or doubling or tripling the real cost of the job by refusing to finish the work until paid.
Even caregivers sometimes take more than they give, Ford said. "Some target people who live alone. Sometimes the caretakers take care of themselves."
Ford further told of a new potential threat that has also been tormenting homeowners in many of Berkeley's neighboring towns, such as Manchester, Jackson and Lacey.
"It's a prank involving household items," she said, "that become literally liquid bombs. Explosives. They find out about this on the Internet."
Luckily, she said, no one has been seriously injured so far.
"But there have been 20 incidents in the last couple of years," she said.
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