A Garden Grove family was out trick-or-treating with their young child on Halloween when they were robbed.
Vicki Nguyen and Peter Lee, an Orange County couple, say they are shaken up after their home was broken into by thieves who targeted what was supposed to be a fun night. According to the two, they realized after the incident that the thieves had followed them to multiple locations.
While the couple was in Orange, they noticed that their car’s tires were slashed. A short while later, I received a call from the security company informing me of a trespass.
“I panicked and thought this was a really bad sign, so I checked my phone to see if anyone was home, but it was offline,” Nguyen said. “My husband checks his phone and it’s offline too… So I’m sharing this group chat on WhatsApp and I ask him to call his neighbors and check if anyone is inside. He asked me to FaceTime him to see what was going on.
During a FaceTime call, the victim’s neighbor said the thieves had taken the safe from her home and loaded it into her car. The couple were later able to recover security camera footage of the moment the robbers did so.
“It was two guys. They were wearing masks, gloves and hoodies,” Lee said. “They knew exactly what they were doing. They shut off the electricity in the house and immediately went to get the goods. They knew exactly where to go. I mean, the place wasn’t ransacked.”
In addition to the safe, the thieves also took the couple’s jewelry and a collection of expensive bags that Nguyen had amassed over the years.
“This is income from all the years we have spent in business,” she said. “Our whole life savings and so on have just gone to waste.”
“That’s the worst,” Lee said. “People like us work hard for our jobs. It’s not fair. At the end of the day, we don’t feel safe. We don’t feel safe in our homes anymore. It doesn’t feel like home.”
The Garden Grove Police Department is investigating the incident as a theft. The couple also said they are considering hiring a private investigator to bring the perpetrators to justice.
Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to contact Garden Grove Police at 714-741-5704.
