Sanguine Tenacious Tidings

Theft and Other Small Things

War Chest Wednesday! From a previous challenger...

Have you ever been robbed? What kind of robbery was it? How did it change your life (or did it have no lasting impact)? If you've never been robbed, how do you think you'd react to it happening to you?

Before you read this you should know this is only a small part of my life story the whole one would make a good movie or book. But, most of it I decline to tell.

Yes. I have been robbed? For many years someone has been removing things from my home. It became serious in the 80’s and 90’s. Some jewelry was stolen from me that was important to me. Plus, over the years horse tack came up missing, horse medicine came up missing. Hay was stolen. Food was removed from the shelves in the kitchen. Tools were removed from the garage. A picture of my grandparents was ripped in half and the part of my grandmother was removed. (It was later returned anonymously and I taped it back together.) The center was stomped out of a painting that I had in my possession from my dad’s old house. It was of two children crossing a bridge and an angel was keeping them safe from a break in the bridge and a raging storm.

Some items are returned after long periods of time. Some items were never returned. Yes, There is a lasting emotional and psychological impact. I never know if something is lost or stolen, and I scream a lot if I get under to much stress. There is a lot of things I won’t take time to tell.

At first we continued to call the state police (since we are in a rural environment the Pa state police were called). They would send out an officer who would take a report then question the neighbors to see if anyone had seen anything suspicious. This is actually an ongoing situation. One officer told me that a local brotherhood was involved and they would not do anything to them unless someone could catch them in the act. Another officer sat down on my front porch and spent quite a little bit of time explaining how the state police families and any one who is actually trying to be honest and law abiding can be targeted for these kinds of thefts. It was as much harassments as it was theft. Because there could be long periods of time between the thefts and the returned items. Another police officer (1993 to 1996) gave me a booklet that said if the thefts were not 1500 dollars in value the police would not bother to find out the why’s. When I told that to people I knew one male acquaintance became agitated and went to the state police and asked if it were true. The police backed down and said it was not legal for them to say things like that all theft and harassment was relevant and prosecuted. About this time the State Police in Pennsylvania were being sued for harassment of some women who took them to court and won.

This also included death threats to me on the telephone at one period of time. We had official taps put on the phone which we had to pay both Verizon and the State Police to do. The police stopped that but said they wouldn’t prosecute the perpetrators because they were teenagers and it would spoil their lives.

It slowed down some while I was going to college then stopped entirely for awhile. I saw a television talk show that expounded that one of the ways to bust the situation is to tell people about it. So, now I do.

The latest was in 2015 (I think that is the year) some things were coming up missing from my horse barn. Plus, someone stabbed my horse in the legs. The policeman who investigated was given a name of someone in the neighborhood. He gave me a number to call if it ever happened again. ( This was after a someone dumped gas on a horse a few miles from here one night and set fire to the horse. No one was ever arrested for this either.) He said he put a permanent stop to the situation?

In winter of 2016 someone took a cross from my bedroom and took the police number card from my desk and took the identity tag off my dogs collar. At one point they changed the drain on the laundry tub in the basement and when I fixed it with the proper drain (yes I fixed it myself) I found the dog tag rusted in the trap. It was removed from the dogs collar one summer night when he was in the dog pen. It was a tag made of bronze so the rust cleaned off well and I returned it to the dogs collar. Then, the cross was thrown onto my bedroom floor just after this Christmas. I doubt I will ever see the telephone number the police gave me to call again. This started up after I bought and gave away several copies of “The Case For Christ” so the cross , dog tag, and telephone number maybe caused by Keith. Plus, this summer someone stole a can of gas from the garage when we were doing hay from our field. The police told Keith on the phone they would not come out and investigate because whenever they ask people questions in this neighborhood the people lie to the police.

Last year someone hacked my Face book account and google asked me to try to make it secure with new pass words they also gave me the computer numbers of the hackers and state addresses of those computers which turns out to be possibly relatives of Keith’s. I rarely use that account so I’m not bothered by it. I have so much information about this type of harassment.

I know more about the situation now. I know some of who the perpetrators are. They don’t have adequate reasons to do these things just local superstitions. I live in an A-frame house. Every once in awhile someone starts a rumor that it is a pyramid. Often people pull scriptures out and try to make trouble for someone in the area. Or, they get up in a church and tell the members to pray for some sinner or another.

In “A Most Curious Murder,” by Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli I found this quote,”I’ve been praying for you.”

“ And, I’m alive anyway.” A sarcastic but true comment by one of the characters.

Anyone out there if you are being harassed in this way get a lawyer and tell everyone you know it is the only recourse I believe.