Two students who live on Foster St. are reporting break-ins at their houses this month, one of which happened on Wednesday night.
The tenants of 311 Foster St. were not home Wednesday night when their residence was robbed. Jennifer Goersch, LSOE ’19, received a call from one of her roommates as she was on her way home. Her roommate told her that when she got home her laptop was missing and there were items scattered across the apartment. It appeared that someone had broken into the home.
Goersch got home at 9 p.m. to find her room in disarray. The door to her room, which she locked when she left, was kicked in and torn off its hinges. Her jewelry was thrown across her carpet, and the sheets of her bed were torn off. Her drawer that contained her wallet was clearly rifled through, and credit cards were scattered on the floor. A couple hundred dollars in cash was missing. She later found her passport, which she had thought was stolen, in her kitchen. Her roommate’s laptop as well as all of her cash was stolen.
When Goersch saw the extent of the damage, she and her roommate immediately called the Boston College Police Department. Goersch said that BCPD told her their officers couldn’t do anything about the situation because Foster St. is out of BCPD’s jurisdiction, and and the girls would have to go to the Boston Police Department headquarters the next morning to report the incident. The students then called BPD who told them that they were very busy, but they would come to the house when they got the chance.
Goersch and her roommates were afraid that the intruder may still have been in the house, so they frantically called BCPD again, crying. She said an officer from BCPD arrived at 12:15 a.m. and checked their doors and walked the perimeter. After the officer put a call into BPD, Boston officers showed up 30 minutes later, Goersch said.
Goersch said that BPD told her that they had filed a report about a break-in at the residence earlier that night, but Goersch and her roommates never called the police to report the incident. BPD also told her, she said, that if she wants to find her gold necklace, she should go to the pawn shops on Washington St. the next day. BPD was unable to be reached for comment at press time.
The break-in Wednesday night was not the only intrusion on Foster St. this month.
Julia Murphy, MCAS ’19, was alarmed when at 2:30 a.m. on Oct. 4 a shadowy figure was standing outside her door, seemingly taking photos of her, at her off-campus home at 299 Foster St.
Murphy lives with three other roommates, one of which often studies at O’Neill Library until 3 or 4 a.m. and doesn’t always have her key with her, so the front door is often left unlocked so she can enter the house late at night.
The night of the break-in, Murphy couldn’t sleep well. While tossing and turning in the early hours of the morning, she heard her door creak open, but thought nothing of it. Then a flash of light came through the crack of the door and lit up the room for a brief moment. Murphy thought her roommate had just come back from the library and was taking a picture of her on Snapchat, so she ignored it. Another light flashed. The light stayed on for several seconds, and Murphy believed she was being filmed.
She shot up in bed and saw what she believed was an iPhone camera light shining through a four-inch space of her door. The light immediately went off and the shadow silently moved away. Murphy can only remember a burly figure that was about six feet tall.
“At the time, I was in complete shock,” Murphy said. “… that wasn’t one of my roommates in my hall, that was somebody watching us. I just knew it right away.”
After being unable to move for a few seconds because she was so shaken, she decided to run and slam her door shut and lock it as means to scare the intruder away and make sure the person would not enter the room.
Her roommate in the bed across from her woke up startled and had asked what happened. After filling her roommate in, the two decided to call their other roommates. The one who answered was also in the home and had been asleep. The three agreed to open their doors at the same time and search the house for any intruders.
When they searched the house, everything seemed to be in order. One of the girl’s laptops, which was displayed plainly on the couch, was still there. Nothing had been stolen.
“Whoever was coming into our house wasn’t necessarily looking for our valuables, [they were] almost looking more so for us,” she said.
Both the front and the back door were locked when the girls searched the home. Murphy believes that the intruder quietly ran out of the front door, which automatically locks when closed.
A couple hours later, Murphy’s fourth roommate arrived back at the house from the library. Murphy had been unable to fall back asleep, so she met her roommate at the door, unlocked it for her, and began to tell her about the break-in.
All of a sudden, they heard one of their back doors slam shut. The girls believe that whoever entered the home earlier had still been circling the property and tried to enter again.
Foster St. has been no stranger to break-ins—The Heights reported on several break-ins last fall.
Murphy went to the BCPD the next morning and filed a report. An officer told her that they would file it with Brighton Police and asked for her email to keep in touch. She has not yet heard back from either BCPD or BPD.
Two days later, according to Murphy, BCPD showed up at her door for another reason—they said there was a note left in a cubicle in O’Neill Library that alleged her home had hostages in the basement. BCPD performed a search and found no hostages. BCPD was unable to find a report for this case in their system on Friday morning.
Murphy said this wasn’t the first time she’s seen suspicious activity on Foster St. One night while she was in her kitchen, she said she saw a motion light activate in her friend’s yard behind her home. She said the man was strolling around the backyard suspiciously. The man continued to circle the house a few times, and Murphy texted her friend to let her know of the suspicious circumstance.
Murphy said she and her roommates are taking more precautions to keep their home safe since the break-in. They are locking their doors more frequently now, keeping some lights on at night, and will no longer walk home at night without a friend.
“You hear these stories and a lot of times, you laugh, but you don’t realize the effect it can have and how prevalent it is until it actually happens to you,” Murphy said. “It’s a huge eye-opener.”
Featured Image via Heights Archives
