MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A man accused of breaking into a home made it easy for police to know exactly which house he got inside of.
Neighbors said it wasn’t just the crime that has them on edge. It was also what he told Memphis Police when he was caught.
“What if that was our house? If he would have came up on me he wouldn’t have left back out,” said Brittaney Ball.
Ball called police when she saw an unfamiliar face in her neighborhood Thursday.
She told officers she knew something was strange when she saw a man walking behind her neighbor’s home in the 4500 block of Cottonwood.
“A guy came out my neighbor’s backyard and he was walking the streets. We asked him what he was doing and he said he was coming from somebody else house, but we know he was doing something he ain’t got no business,” she said.
Ball said her neighbor was home asleep when she realized someone was trying to get inside her neighbor’s home. She followed him until police came.
“So we went over there and we saw that he was prying in their windows trying to get in their house,” she stated.
When police showed up, Miketavis Smith told officers “I didn’t break in that house on Cottonwood. I broke in the one behind it.”
WREG spoke with a couple that lives next door to the house behind Cottonwood in the 4500 block of Almo.
They’re thinking about moving out of their home of 27 years after learning someone broke into their neighbor’s home Thursday morning.
“The back window, she had left the window in the back of the house unlocked and they had broken in through that window. She had an alarm system, and it set off the alarm so there was a quick response,” said Mike Albert.
The victim told police someone ransacked the home.
Albert said this wasn’t the first time someone broke into his neighbor’s home.
“The second time since they have moved in there that they’ve been broken into. They didn’t get anything yesterday but the first time they broke in, they got several TV sets,” he stated.
Police said Smith had a kitchen knife sticking out of his pants along with gloves when they stopped him.
His bond was set for $30,000.
