HOUSTON — Two crooks with a clever scheme made their way into Keli Rabon's home in Upper Kirby Tuesday afternoon. She and her kids were home when the home was burglarized.
Rabon is speaking to KHOU 11, hoping to warn others before this duo strikes again.
Surveillance video captured an unsuspecting knock on the door, followed by a mic check between the two suspects. It was the beginning of a scheme to get inside Rabon's home.
"It was a guy who said he was here to trim trees for an adjoining property," Rabon said.
Her nanny checked with Rabon, who agreed to let him come in.
"You can come through here," the nanny is heard saying on the doorbell video.
"She let him come through the house. Sadly she forgot to lock the front door," Rabon said.
Rabon quickly jumped out of the shower and went to check on the guy in the backyard.
"I wanted to see who he was and what company he was with to hear the whole spiel," said Rabon. "I actually asked him if he could show me a business card. He said he had just run out conveniently."
The guy was a fast talker who then made a strange request.
"He asked us to stand right about here," Rabon showed us in her backyard.
It was the perfect spot where she and her nanny couldn't see back into the home.
Meanwhile, at the front door, a second suspect with gloves and a hat just walked right in. Five minutes later, the same man walked out with her safe wrapped in a blanket. Rabon heard the door slam.
"We looked and said, 'What was that,'" said Rabon. "He said 'gotta go' and then he ran."
The fake tree trimmer was seen on camera fleeing her home, too. When she got upstairs, she realized what had happened.
"My heart shattered immediately into 1,000 pieces," Rabon said.
Her closet was rummaged through and jewelry swiped. Her safe and everything in it -- cash, passports, documents, baby photos and more valuables all gone right before Christmas.
"I lost a lot of money, a lot of value yesterday," said Rabon. "They were in my bedroom taking my most personal things. It's just not the material things, it's the stuff I will never get back."
She worries the crooks had inside knowledge about where the safe was.
"I don't want to live paranoid, but it's hard not to when it's so violating," said Rabon.
By the time the nanny got outside, it was too late. The suspects both were seen on a neighbor's camera loading up the safe into a dark pickup truck before speeding off.
"They knew exactly what they were doing and they had it down," said Rabon. "I want these guys to be found."
With Christmas just five days away, Rabon worries these two will do it again to someone else.
"What would have happened if I would have been in my bedroom when that guy came in," Rabon said. "That's one of the parts that bothers me the most. What would have done to me?"
Houston police are now investigating. If you recognize the men in the video, you're asked to call HPD right away.