BREAK-IN: The Hardest Week of Our Marriage

While Jennifer and I were dating, I was in Bible college.  The school I was attending had a trailer park where married couples lived, and it was our plan to live there once we got married.  Unfortunately, when we attempted to secure a trailer while engaged, we were informed that they did not allow engaged folks to purchase trailers, just in case the engagement falls apart.

So, we looked elsewhere.

Just a couple of exits down the highway from the school was a street filled with low-cost apartments.  As poor college students with a single income, this sounded great.  We found a two story town house close to my school, and the price was right.  The price was perhaps too good.

After about 5 months of marriage, we purchased our first dog, Dr. Lars.  In his early puppy days, we would have to take him out in the middle of the night to prevent him from peeing on the floor.  On one occasion, Jennifer took The Dr. outside at 5 a.m. When she went to run an errand later that morning, a large area across the complex from us was roped off with crime scene tape, and police cars were everywhere.  

We later learned that there was a drug related stabbing/murder in our apartment complex...that happened to take place at the same time The Dr. was relieving himself, which means Jennifer was outside when the suspects fled the scene.  This probably should have been a warning sign that we were living in the wrong place...but it wasn't.

THE BREAK-IN

A week before our 1 year anniversary, Jennifer and I went on a weekend vacation to see her aunt in Atlanta, and took Lars with us.  We didn't think anything of it. Just a weekend trip.

We returned late Sunday night. I was the first to get out of the car, and quickly ran up to the back door.  My key unlocked the door as it always did, but when I pushed it, the chain caught the door before it could open.  

A brief moment of confusion set in, "Why would the door be locked by the chain? There's no way we could do that. It only locks from the inside."

Then, reality started to set in.  I looked through the crack, and saw everything was turned upside down.  I have no recollection of how I told Jennifer what had happened, or what took place over the next 10 minutes but, eventually, the police arrived.  

Apparently, the police in Columbia, South Carolina have no bedside manner.  While they walked through our demolished home, they just kept telling us that the reason this happened is because we didn't have a Rottweiler.  The most intimate parts of our home were exposed by the worst of humanity, and they just wanted to make jokes about our need of having a vicious dog.    

This was not particularly comforting.

A detective was assigned, but it didn't matter.  A single break-in isn't the priority of a police force.  While the detective was very friendly, nothing came of his investigation.  Even when it came to obvious clues, they were ignored.  

As point of reference, I had a Korg 32 track audio recorder which was stolen.  I decided to check eBay for how many used units were being sold in the United States.  There were two.  One was being sold within 10 miles of where we lived.  The pictures had a piece of tape covering the production number.  I guess there's a chance this wasn't related but, statistically speaking, it's really unlikely that, within days of such a rare item being stolen from us, it would go on sale 10 miles from our house.  I must repeat, there were only TWO on eBay in the entire United States.

THE AFTERMATH

After the robbery, we didn't want to stay in our apartment anymore.  We didn't feel safe.  Instead, we stayed in a series of hotels for about a week.  During the day (after school and work), we would return to our apartment and try and pack things up.  I would literally stand in our bedroom upstairs, staring outside, holding a machete (I'm not joking), hoping to find someone behaving suspiciously.  Our plan was to stay in a long-term stay-hotel until I graduated but, after a week, we realized this wasn't affordable or wise.

There's really no way to describe in words the feeling of fear and insecurity you feel after something like this happens.  Your home is violated.  Your home is taken from you. There's nowhere you can go to be safe.

Luckily, one of the benefits of Bible college is that there's a community there that really cares about each other.  One of my professors generously let us live in her home for 3 weeks straight, with our dog.  For most of the trip she was on vacation but, even when she returned, she chose to let us stay in her home while she went to a friend's house.

They never found out who robbed us.  There was no progress. No closure.
Jennifer has called the detective over our case after every time that we moved to ensure that they have our contact information, so we can press charges, should they ever find the culprit(s). There have been no new developments.

The devastation of our security is what led us to move back to Texas after I graduated.  Weeks after I graduated, we made the decision to move back to the Austin area on a blind move of faith.

While being robbed was an awful experience, it led us to where we are today.
And we like where we are today.



On a happy note, here is a post recall our relationship through a series of 60 pictures: