HOUSTON — A Houston woman believes she is lucky to be alive after two burglars broke into her home while she was asleep; The incident was caught on home security cameras from multiple angles.
“They could have killed me, anything could have happened, they could’ve come back,” Katrina Evans said.
Evans tells KHOU 11 News she was asleep the entire time the intruders were in her home. She said she still thinks about what would’ve happened if she was awake.
“It’s fear that never goes away, how do you ever feel safe in your own home again,” she said. “Thankfully I was asleep because I don’t know where I’d be if they’d walked in and I was awake.”
The incident happened around 9:30 a.m. on March 1.
In home security videos shared with KHOU 11 News, two masked intruders can be seen climbing over a wall, into the patio at Evan’s townhome in southwest Houston. Evans believes the intruders came in through a sliding glass door that connects the patio to her home.
Another video shows the intruders inside the home, walking up the stairs.
“They went into our bedroom and stole items from there and then came into the office where I was asleep and stood three feet away from me and stole my medication as well,” she said.
Evans said the burglars also took her son's PlayStation gaming console before they left.
In one security video, the burglars can be seen walking back down the stairs past Evan’s dog. Yet another video shows the burglars leaving through the front door and walking away from the townhome.
Evans said she wasn’t even aware of the burglary until she saw that her medication was missing and she called her husband.
“He started pulling up the camera footage and that’s when we knew, and we called HPD immediately and it took 4 and half hours for them to come out here,” she said.
By the time police arrived, Evans said she’d looked at the security video and felt there was something familiar about one of the burglars. She believes it’s someone who lives nearby, who she knows.
Evans said she even saw one of the burglars in the same area the next day. However, she said police took hours to respond and the suspect got away again.
“It was disappointing, it doesn’t make me feel any safer,” she said of the HPD response.
Evans said that she hoped for a faster police response, but she is working with Houston police detectives to identify the suspect and press charges.
She also told KHOU 11 News that she wanted to see a better response from her local HOA following the March 1 burglary and other incidents. Previously, Evans said that her car was broken into and the tires on her husband’s car were stolen.
At her townhome, Evans explained that she has increased security in several ways, including door stoppers and real-time video camera monitoring. Evans said she also carries around a personal alarm in an effort to deter any future criminal activity.
“So all I can do is put more locks and more alarms and more cameras and hope it works, which I shouldn’t have to do,” she said.
Crimestoppers of Houston CEO Rani Mankarious explained there are multiple ways homeowners can try to deter break-ins:
“We don’t want people to grow discouraged, still get those home security cameras,” she said. “But there are other things. We’re asking for neighborhoods to really band together. This is more than being on the NextDoor app. This is telling your 5 or 6 neighbors, I’m going to be out of town, let’s watch each others homes.”