HOUSTON — Michelle Puckett is the owner of Designer Diva Resale. She explained the nonprofit consignment store uses its proceeds to provide opportunities for adults living with intellectual disabilities and survivors of domestic violence.
“I hug pretty much everybody that comes in,” Puckett told KHOU 11 News.
Now she needs those hugs more than ever, because Puckett said around 3:45 a.m. Tuesday, her security system sent her an alert.
“I looked on my phone and I didn’t see anything," she said. "And then another one around 4:10, I think, and I looked and I still didn’t see anything."
So she went back to sleep...that is, until she received a call from a neighbor a few hours later, explaining her business had been burglarized.
“They broke the window in the corner where office is and they bent the bars out, and they climbed through," Puckett told KHOU 11 News. "They just destroyed the office. They threw monitors, printers, computers. They broke them all."
In a store full of high-end items, Puckett said the thieves zeroed in on one type of item.
“They stole all our expensive fur coats. It was 63 fur coats,” Puckett said.
Are you ready for some sticker shock? Puckett explained the 63 stolen furs and damages add up to around $768,000. To add insult to injury, she said the bandits also snagged $500 in cash donations, which was going to go to Hurricane Helene victims.
“It’s very personal," she said. "I kind of wish I would have come up that night, but then no, because they could’ve had a gun, like I said, and they could have killed me, beat me up or something that."
The crooks even grabbed Puckett’s security system’s memory cards, erasing all surveillance in the process. Puckett is now hoping and praying the thieves are somehow brought to justice.
“It’s just sad that people, instead of asking for help, that they feel that they have to destroy people’s lives, and businesses you know, when we’re really just trying to do good,” Puckett told KHOU 11 News.
Since the break-in, Puckett said she had a new monitored alarm system installed, with a loud alarm. The new system also backs up all its video to an online cloud.
A GoFundMe has been started for the nonprofit consignment store.