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Draper family asks for help finding suspects after brazen theft caught on camera

Posted at 7:20 PM, Mar 10, 2017
and last updated 2017-03-10 21:20:51-05

DRAPER – A Draper woman is pleading for the public’s help after someone drove up to her driveway and stole her purse from inside her car.

Raechel Hwang and her family were just settling back into their everyday routine after returning home from vacation when their world turned upside down.

“We just got back from grocery shopping with my kids, and we kinda rushed inside and I forgot to close the garage door," Hwang said.

On Wednesday afternoon, Raechel unloaded her kids and groceries from her car and left the garage door and the back door to her car wide open.

Surveillance video shows two men pulling up to the garage. The male passenger emerges from the car, and runs into the garage.

He reaches into the back seat of the car and grabs a purse. The man runs back to the waiting car, but stops for a second and hides the purse behind his back as a car pulls into a house across the street.

The men back up onto the street and drive off, just as someone in the car across the street gets dropped off.

“It’s super scary that someone was bold enough to come into my house? Into my driveway? In the middle of the day when I would normally send my kids outside and not even think about it,” Hwang said.

Raechel didn’t realize what had happened until an hour later when her husband called, saying someone had found her son’s cell phone on Highland Drive. The phone had been inside her purse along with cash, credit cards, and $15,000 worth of jewelry.

“My watch, several pieces of jewelry, my wedding, my engagement ring, a piece of jewelry from my mom,” Hwang said. “We went right to police and cancelled our cards and got information, even by then he'd already been to a Wendy's to try and spend one of our cards and spent $2.00.”

Raechel hopes someone will recognize the man in the video and the car, which appears to be a white 2009 Toyota Highlander or a similar make and model She’s also checking with neighbors to find out if their cameras might have picked up something that could help track these guys down.

“We don't feel safe where we live, in the community that we thought was really safe,” Hwang said.

If you have any information about this case, call Draper Police at 801-576- 6300.