Justice Served?

One day in September of 2007, I was driving to our home outside of West, Texas after work just like any other day. I was talking on my cell phone with Brent while he drove home as well, like we did everyday. I got home first and when I opened the garage door and walked in I noticed that all of the cabinet doors in our garage were standing wide open. I then turned and noticed that the door to the house from the garage was standing wide open as well. All I said over the phone to Brent was, "Honey?" and Brent immediately knew something was wrong. He started yelling for me to get back in the car and not go inside. I took a step closer to look into the living room and this is what I saw....

Living Room

I immediately started crying and ran back to the car and waited for Brent to drive up as he was only a few minutes behind me. We called the local sheriffs department and allowed them to search the house. Our home had been broken into and vandalized. We felt like all of the security of our home had been stripped away. Our house was in shambles. It took us the entire evening and next day to get things cleaned up and back in order.

We filled out a police report and made a list of things stolen for our insurance company. We always suspected that it must have been some young kids that didn't go to school who must have noticed that Brent and I were both out of the house during the daytime hours and only returned home each evening. We could see that they took their time going through the ENTIRE house, room-by-room, drawer-by-drawer, pulling everything we owned out and throwing it around the house. Holes were punched in the walls, random items were thrown into our wedding pictures on the walls. They even threw one of my free-weights (an 8 lb. weight, I believe) through the sheet rock in one room.

The Hallway

One Guest Bedroom

Master Bedroom

Closet in Master Bedroom

All the typical things were missing: DVDs, digital cameras, our laptop, Brent's old xbox...the list went on and on. The sheriffs office focused on some specific items that had serial numbers attached that they could track if they were pawned. Those items included a 9mm handgun Brent kept in a case under our bed, our laptop and also Brent's Baylor Ring which had his name and a serial number engraved inside.

We moved very soon after the break in and never heard anything about the case....until last week. Brent was home sick and the sheriff in charge of our case called. I gave the phone over to Brent and the sheriff told him that an arrest had been made in our case when the person that broke into our house pawned Brent's Baylor ring. The sheriff also told Brent that the 9 mm handgun that was stolen had been used in a homicide in Austin, TX. I immediately felt very, very sad. We were happy to hear that the person responsible had been caught and was serving time in jail (they were only able to charge him with Possession of Stolen Property and not the actual break-in because too much time had passed, but they did charge him with multiple other break-ins in the area), but we were so sad to hear that the stolen gun had been sold on the street and used in a homicide.

So, we really don't feel like justice has been served.