Police in Athens are trying to determine if several recent home burglaries targeting sterling silver flatware are linked to similar silver heists elsewhere in Georgia and surrounding states.
The Athens Banner-Herald reported that the burglaries appear to have been pulled off by a professional cat burglar who cut out window panes and entered occupied homes without waking residents.
“Whoever it is, they know what they’re doing,” Athens-Clarke County police Lt. David Coker said of the recent burglaries, which happened in just over a week’s time earlier this month.
On July 8, someone removed a dining room window pane at a home on Milledge Circle and stole $5,000 worth of sterling silver flatware, bowls and cups, according to the Banner-Herald.
A week later, a home on Red Oak Trail in Athens was burglarized of $20,000 in sterling silver items. Then, the following day, a set of sterling silver flatware, valued at $5,000, was swiped from a home on Tallassee Oaks Trail.
The newspaper reported that the thief only steals sterling silver, leaving behind silver-plated items.
In addition to comparing notes with Atlanta police on similar burglaries in Buckhead, investigators are checking to see if there is a connection to silver thefts in Tennessee, Alabama and the Carolinas.
Atlanta police spokeswoman Kim Jones told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Wednesday that, “we are working with other jurisdictions in the Southeast on this very issue.”
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