A brazen thief has stolen jewellery worth $9000 from a handbag in a garage, probably while the owner was inside her Warrnambool house having a shower on Saturday.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The thief took Shanae Hyder’s wedding and engagement rings, Pandora bracelet and charms, a white gold ruby and diamond ring from her grandmother and a silver eternity ring her husband, Andrew, had given to her when she was 16.
“We live in Warrnambool. This is supposed to be a safe town. These escalations of theft are getting beyond a joke. We never think it’s going to happen to us and then it does,” Mrs Hyder said.
The engagement ring, worth $3700, originally belonged to her mother-in-law.
“She showed it to me when I was 15 and (Andrew) proposed to me when I was 21 with that same ring. That was passed down to me and was to be passed down later on,” Mrs Hyder said.
She had left the handbag containing the jewellery, which she takes off when she is at work or exercising, in the garage which has an entertainment area.
Mrs Hyder was not 100 per cent sure when the theft happened.
But she believed it was either on Friday night when they briefly went inside to have dinner but most likely on Saturday morning when she was having a shower.
“We were home the whole time,” she said.
Mrs Hyder said they often left the roller door to their four-car garage open while they are home and locked it when they were asleep or away.
There were no signs of forced entry at the Ross Street property.
The thief took much of the contents of Mrs Hyder’s wallet and handbag – including about $100 in cash, perfume, deodorant, chocolate and sunglasses – but left the bag and wallet behind unzipped.
“My laptop was sitting right next to it. They didn’t touch it,” she said.
“They left my car keys. The car keys were sitting there with my car in the driveway.”
Some of the items from her bag were later found dumped in the front yard and in a driveway around the corner from her house, but not the jewellery.
Mrs Hyder said each piece of Pandora jewellery that was stolen had been given to her as gifts from family and friends.
“Most of the Pandora that was taken is retired jewellery, so you can’t replace it,” she said.
“I just want it back.”
The theft, which was discovered about 11.30am on Saturday, put a dampener on her husband’s 30th birthday celebrations that night.
