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Suspect caught on camera stealing lawn equipment, decorations from family’s home

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — An Indianapolis homeowner is hoping surveillance video will help police track down the suspect accused of stealing lawn equipment, decorations and his daughter’s bicycle from the family’s yard.

It happened over the weekend near Banta Court and Banta Trail on the south side of Indianapolis.

The homeowner told 24-Hour News 8 he woke up early Saturday morning to take his pregnant wife to the hospital when he noticed the patio chairs missing.

“I came out and noticed a couple of patio chairs missing, which kind of threw me off because I didn’t know if someone moved them the night before or what had happened,” said Colby Shaw, theft victim.

He got back home from the hospital, checked the surveillance video and saw the suspect got away with much more.

“I went back and looked at all the cameras and noticed this woman had come by herself and basically took everything in my front yard,” he said.

In the surveillance video provided by the homeowner, you can see the suspect’s face clear as day.

“I didn’t have words for it,” said Shaw. “It was kind of like, is someone playing a trick on me? Like, what’s really going on? And then I noticed a lot of my kids’ stuff were gone.”

Shaw said the theft happened around 4 a.m.

“It’s very weird. Video shows she was sitting across the street for about 10 to 15 minutes and then drove over here and that’s when everything kind of just happened,” said Shaw.

Shaw’s family was still sleeping and wouldn’t be up for another couple of hours.

“Nothing like this has happened before, especially for someone to come up as casual as she did and basically kind of had a hay day on my front yard and front porch,” he said.

The video shows a woman believed to be in her 30s in the family’s driveway, going through their trash. In another video, you can see her loading several things onto the truck.

“I couldn’t help but to laugh,” said Shaw. “I was almost sick to my stomach, but at the same time, it’s like, what possess someone to do that.”

Shaw believes the suspect got away with patio chairs, landscaping lights, an outdoor trash can, a tool bag, a leaf blower, extension cords and his daughter’s bicycle.

“It’s just a principle to me, you know. If you want something, you go out and you work for it. You go out, and you buy,” he said. “It’s not fair to someone else to go out and work seven days a week, like I do, you know, buying toys for kids and then some other person wants to walk in, kind of take everything away from you. I’m glad it wasn’t Christmas.”

Shaw said he shared the surveillance video on Facebook, hoping someone could help identify the suspect, and since then, it’s been shared — more than 2,000 times as of Monday night.

“It kind of blew up. I mean just three days straight of constant notifications, people sending me messages, you know, telling me how sorry they were,” he explained. “You really don’t know how powerful Facebook, Twitter or whatever it is, don’t know how powerful it is until you actually try to go out and either look for something, find something out. There was a lot of outreach. It blew me away.

Shaw said several people contacted him through Facebook with the name of the suspect. He said he filed a police report and is now waiting to hear back from officers to share the new information.

24-Hour News 8 contacted IMPD for an update on the case, but has not heard back.

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