Elderly Stockton Couple Says Men Scoped Them Out Before Ransacking Home
STOCKTON (CBS13) — Police are searching for four men who terrorized an elderly couple in their own home.
Detectives are asking people to be on the lookout for anything suspicious, saying home invasions aren't new for Stockton, but neighbors need to take a more active role in their communities.
Tony Reina says she and her 84-year-old husband were woken from a deep sleep, but what happened next still felt like a nightmare.
Police say four men between 18 and 30 years old broke in from the back gate, kicked down the back door and stormed in carrying guns.
"They put a gun to our temples, you know? And then they enclosed us in the bathroom," she said.
The men pushed the couple into the bathroom and locked the door.
"We thought that they were going to kill us," she said. "That this would be the last moment in our home that we enjoyed."
Instead, the robbers ransacked the house, taking cash, iPads, computers, jewelry, credit cards and her husband's pickup truck. She thinks the men scoped out the house earlier in the day.
"Sunday, they came in between 11:30 and while we were out to lunch," she said.
"Investigators don't know exactly why these men targeted this house, that's why it's concerning for us here at the police department," said police spokesman Joe Silva. "We will have additional patrols in that neighborhood and that's why it's important we get out and go into those neighborhoods."
He says detectives are working with the North Stockton community to set up a neighborhood watch group, and neighbors are already banding together.