Man uses garage door opener from truck to burglarize home

AUBURN, Wash. -- One family's experience should be a lesson to us all, after a burglar opened their unlocked truck and used an electric garage door opener to steal their stuff.

The video’s a little dark, but shows a man open his truck that’s parked in front of his house, then use the clicker to open up the garage door.

“We were awakened in the middle of the night with some banging,”  said Greg Corwin.  “And I saw a car parked out here.  Didn’t think anything about it.  Thought it was at the neighbor’s house.  A few minutes later I heard more banging and this time it sounded really close.”

Corwin thinks what he was hearing, was the garage door being opened and the guy ransacking its contents.

Once inside, another camera captured a better image of the man’s face.

He has a pony tail, and wears a backwards black baseball cap, a black shirt and black pants.

"You can seem him at one point, both coming into the house and into the garage.  He's grabbing into his pocket and holding his pocket out.  And when he was getting back into this car you can see him doing it again,”  Corwin said.  “I think the guy was carrying a weapon, seeing if he's going to get confronted."

He says his neighbor, who’s been hit several times by burglars, now has trouble sleeping at night.   The neighbor owns a service truck and worries about his property.

And now, Corwin says he’s having trouble sleeping, too, knowing the thief is still out there.

“Up all night,”  Corwin said.  “This is a working class neighborhood.  It’s a cul-de-sac.  Most of us have been here, ten, 20, 30 years.  You’re just not safe anymore,” said Corwin.  “They need to leave the people’s property alone.  And that’s why I was hoping to get some attention on this thing.”

He says the man made off with lots of expensive items, including a laptop, an expensive camera and a stun gun.

“So now he’s armed.  I know he’s got a weapon now.  The guy’s out of control.  He’s crazy.”

If you know where police can find the suspect, contact Auburn police detectives.

"I'm also never leaving the garage door opener in the pickup truck again," he says.  "We left the door unlocked.  There's kids and things going on and shopping and grocery stores.   You make mistakes.  You can't fix it every time, and you turn your back for a second.  Because we all know what's going on in the neighborhood.  And it got us."