Several elderly Aurora residents were the targets of attempted burglaries earlier this month after a group of men used a ruse to gain access to the residents’ homes, Aurora police said.
The first incident occurred around 3:15 p.m. Sept. 4 at a home in the 1100 block of Pleasant Terrace.
Aurora Police Department spokesman Dan Ferrelli said a 92-year-old man called police to report that an approximately 55-year-old man came to the home claiming that he needed to take measurements around the property.
The man told the homeowner that he was doing work at a business next door to the home and needed to access the backyard. He then led the homeowner to the backyard of the house, Ferrelli said.
Police said the homeowner became suspicious of the man when he was unable to answer several questions about the work being performed.
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The homeowner told police that he noticed a second man on his property near the garage before the two men entered a white pickup truck and left southbound on Pleasant Terrace.
When he went back inside his home, the homeowner noticed several rooms had been ransacked and a lock was broken, police said. Nothing appeared to have been taken, but about $200 in damage was done to the lock.
Ferrelli said video footage captured by a nearby business showed four people entering a 2016 four-door Chevrolet Silverado with tinted windows, and a black tool box in the bed of the truck.
Police believe the same men targeted a second household belonging to an 88-year-old man and his 85-year-old wife Sept. 15.
Ferrelli said that at around 4:40 p.m. a man knocked on the front door of a home in the 700 block of North Avenue offering tree-trimming services.
The man led the 85-year-old woman to the backyard while two other men entered the home to talk with the woman’s husband.
According to Ferrelli, the two men inside the home attempted to engage the 88-year-old man in conversation in an attempt to distract him while one of the men headed upstairs.
When the homeowner became suspicious, he told the men he was going to call police.
After learning this, the two men inside left the home and got into a pickup truck with the third man who had been in the backyard.
Ferrelli said the vehicle was similar to the one used in the Pleasant Terrace attempted burglary.
Nothing was taken from the North Avenue home, police said.
Anyone with information about the attempted ruse burglaries is asked to call Aurora police investigators at 630-256-5500 or Crime Stoppers at 630-892-1000.