KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Law enforcement officials in Clay County are asking residents to report stolen packages after they recovered 51 items and identified nine victims in the last week.
The Clay County Sheriff's Office has 29 of the 51 stolen items in its possession because it can't connect them to a victim due to a lack of reports. The nine identified victims have been reunited with the rest of the stolen items.
On Tuesday, an Excelsior Springs woman was arrested and charged in connection to the thefts.
"We need those reports or the bad guys don't get held accountable," Sarah Boyd, public information officer for the Clay County Sheriff's Office, said.
The sheriff's office was in luck this week, as residents across the county uploaded home security videos of their packages being stolen to social media.
"Even though we didn't get those reports, we saw this happening on social media and our investigators proactively started looking at it," Boyd said.
Cortney Myers lives in the Northland in Clay County. Her package was stolen on Wednesday, Nov. 27.
She said she's never seen crime in her neighborhood.
"It's violating, like someone came onto my porch to take something that belonged to me," she said.
Myers reported the theft to the Clay County Sheriff's Office.
"I know there are bigger fish to fry, bigger crimes," she said. "But, when it starts to affect so many people and right around the holidays, it feels good to know they're going after them."
Now, Myers is figuring out how to have her packages safely delivered.
"Talk to your neighbors, because it honestly kind of brought us all together," Myers said. "We all Facebook-friended each other, and now we're all going to watch out for each other a little bit more than we already were."
The Clay County Sheriff's Office also suggests having your packages delivered to a secure location, requiring a signature for delivery, providing a garage code to the deliverer, or send packages to your workplace.
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KSHB 41 reporter Lily O’Shea Becker covers Franklin and Douglas counties in Kansas. Share your story idea with Lily.