They knew something was wrong, as soon as Marty Alvarado and her daughter arrived home.
   “As I pulled in the driveway, I saw a ladder against my window,” Alvarado says. “My bedroom door was busted out, and it looked as if a tornado had hit my bedroom.”
   Thieves targeted Alvarado and took almost everything of value from her house. Normally, Alvarado locks her bedroom door, but since the thieves entered her two-story house through her bedroom window, it wouldn’t have prevented them from gaining access to the whole house.
   “There had to be more than one,” Alvarado says. “They took my new laptop, keepsakes and my rings. They also took appliances, cameras and whatever was of value.”
   Once they entered her living room, they took her 42-inch HDTV and a smaller HDTV. She called the police to make a report, and officers arrived about 40 minutes later.
   “They told me not to touch anything and wait for the unit to take fingerprints,” Alvarado says.
   She waited and waited.
   “Saturday and Sunday came, and no one showed up,” Alvarado says. “I called the investigator, and she said she showed up and knocked at the door on Sunday. We were there, but we didn’t hear it. She said they would come on Monday, but no one showed.”
   And to add insult to injury, Alvarado called her insurance company to make a claim but was surprised to find out they didn’t have a policy on her house.
   “After we closed on the house, we received a check from the mortgage company,” she says. “We thought it was overage on the escrow, and we cashed and spent it. But it was money that was supposed to be for insurance, and it wasn’t enough so they sent it back.
   “I feel sick and I’m angry,” Alvarado says. “I’m not going to take this lying down. On my contract it says I have insurance, and I’m going to get to the bottom of this. I’ve lost too much stuff. Someone should have told me I didn’t have insurance, and there wasn’t any explanation on that check.”
   Dallas Police Sr. Cpl. Herb Ebsen, a 25-year veteran in the Oak Cliff area, has investigated plenty of crimes, but says that this crime is unusual.
   “There is a good chance that she might know who did this because they knew the layout of the house,” he says. “The crime scene techs did show up and take prints four days later. I can’t really comment on that, but there must have been some
major miscommunication.”
   “However, if you see someone or some car that just doesn’t feel right in your neighborhood and is out of place, then call 911,” Ebsen says. “We jump on calls like that. Don’t be hesitant to call us. We rely on citizens to help us.”
   As for Alvarado’s missing items, Ebsen says that sooner or later, most of it will end up in pawnshops. —Gabby Martinez