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Crime & Safety

Robbery, Burglary Reported at Apartment Complex

A hole in the wall allowed a suspect to gain access to two separate residences at Westbury Springs Apartments.

A hole in the wall allowed a suspect to gain access to two adjacent residences at Westbury Springs Apartments, causing two families to be robbed and burglarized in the same day.

According to the Gwinnett County Police reports, the incidents occurred Dec. 17 around 10 a.m.  at the complex, located on the 4800 block of Burns Road in unincorporated Lilburn.

The incident was originally called in by the robbery victim, a 29-year-old woman, who lived in one of the apartments with her two young boys. One of the boys explained to police that they had been sitting on the couch in the living room when they heard a loud banging and saw an African-American man crawl through a hole in the dining room wall.

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It's not stated in the report how or when the hole was created, but the wall connected their apartment with the residence next door.

The three victims ran to the bedroom before the male suspect saw them, but the boy said he eventually came back to the living room and found the man still there. According to the boy, the man stated that he was the "maintenance guy" and he was there to fix the hole in the wall.

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At that point, the mother said that she had come out of the room, too, and the man had grabbed her purse on the dining room table. He walked out the front door, and the woman tried to catch up with him, but he ran off behind the building.

The woman said her purse contained an estimated $7,600 worth of gold items; $550 in cash; debit cards; and her ID.

When officers observed the other apartment, the other police report says, they saw that the back sliding glass door had been partially opened. They believe this is the original entry point for the two incidents because there were no signs of forced entry.

Officers noted that the suspect tried to take a flat screen TV off the wall but was unsuccessful. All the bedrooms had been ransacked, which made it hard for the victim, 25, to make a full inventory of what had been taken. She did report her HP laptop missing, though.

The victim of the robbery described the suspect as being tall, skinny, in his late teens or early twenties, and having shoulder-length poofy hair. At the time of the incident, he was wearing a brown short-sleeve vest-style jacket, a blue or green long-sleeve shirt, dark-colored work pants, and yellow or tan work boots.

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