NORTHBRIDGE, Mass. — The Northbridge Police Department needs your help finding a man caught on doorbell video going into the wrong home.
“All the adults were out here putting together the swing set and my daughter came outside and said, ‘Hey mom, there was just a man standing outside of Max’s bedroom,’” said Northbridge resident Tarah Schweitzer.
Let’s call that man Mr. Cool, calm and collected. Without a car, he walked up to the Presidential Farms home like he belonged there, walking right past a Ring camera while looking at his phone. He doesn’t ring the doorbell but walked right into the unlocked door where the only people inside were children, including a very observant 7-year-old daughter.
“She said he was standing very close to the back wall, and she just kept her head down and noticed his shoes twice when she walked past,” Schweitzer said. “She didn’t make eye contact with him, but she noticed that he was wearing black and green camo crocs with little charms in it like pizza and hot sauce and cookies and pasta.”
Schweitzer said he never said a word to any of the children he saw inside, but for 16 minutes, he was inside their home, before eventually walking out the same way he came in, cool, calm but he collected not one thing.
>>>MORE: Task force releases report addressing systemic racism in Boston
“Nothing was disturbed,” Schweitzer said. “I asked my daughter, ‘did he go into bedrooms? Was he doing anything? Did he ever open my bedroom door?’ No,” Schweitzer said.
When the adults finally realized what happened, they called the police and checked with neighbors who all told her they didn’t recognize him and were not expecting him.
“I really am trying to see the good here and that it really was an honest mistake because it doesn’t make sense to me in any other way,” Schweitzer said. “I don’t think somebody would case somebody’s house in the middle of broad daylight on a Sunday with people home. There were two motorcycles and a car in the driveway.”
She said she is hoping he turns himself in so she can get a clue into what he was trying to do and so she can ask him to finish what he interrupted.
“He has to come finish putting the swing set together,” Schweitzer said.
Schweitzer has posted the video online, and it’s been shared hundreds of times. Some people have even given police a couple of names. She said one person had an alibi, the other, police are still investigating.
Schweitzer said she’s used this as an opportunity to have some tough conversations with her kids about stranger danger and she encourages other parents to do the same.
Follow Wale on Facebook: WaleAliyuTV Twitter: @WaleAliyu or Instagram: WaleAliyuTV