A 90-year-old woman was tricked in her own Montgomery County home by scammers posing as utility workers, who stole treasured pieces of jewelry including her wedding ring.
It started with a simple knock at the door to her Kensington home.
"I said, 'Are you from Pepco?' and she said, 'No, but we're just helping the utilities,'" said the victim, who didn't want her name used. The woman asked to see the victim's power meter, and the victim took her around back.
But the front door was left unlocked, and a man was out front in a red or maroon car.
"She just kept talking, and every so often, she'd go back to check with her boss, she said," the victim recounted.
After the supposed utility crew left, the victim made a devastating discovery: "My jewelry box was open and everything in it was gone except a pair of pearl earrings," she said.
Irreplaceable pieces may be lost forever, including her wedding and engagement rings from her late husband, and the watch he gave her for their first Christmas, engraved with the year and both their names.
Montgomery County Police think the scammers pulled the same trick on two other senior citizens recently. The other two victims are also women, and live in Silver Spring and Rockville.
In the earliest known case, which happened in May, the thieves told the victim they could replace pipes, but instead stole credit cards from her house. Police have surveillance images of the suspects, a woman and a man, using stolen credit cards at various stores in Montgomery County and in D.C.
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Officer Rick Goodale advises residents to ask to see utility-issued ID, and to call the company they're claiming to be from.
For the Kensington victim, who was robbed just two days before her 90th birthday, the effects of the theft have gone beyond the loss of her sentimental items.
"I feel like a prisoner in my own home," the victim said. "You know, I never know who's watching me."
"I've lost trust in people," she said.
