Police are searching for a man who allegedly stole $30,000 worth
of silver coins from a 55-year-old woman’s home last week.
Police are searching for a man who allegedly stole $30,000 worth of silver coins from a 55-year-old woman’s home last week.
The woman, who lives in northwest Gilroy but who police did not identify, drove up to the unnamed suspect’s Sacramento home with family members sometime after the July 21 robbery and recovered three of the four boxes containing the coins. The suspect stole the boxes and a 14 karat ring with 10 diamonds and three rubies from the woman’s house and a storage shed on the property, police said.
At some point after the burglary, the man admitted to pawning the fourth box and also threatened to kill the woman through an unknown intermediary, though it was unclear whether the woman and suspect encountered each other in the capital, Sgt. Jim Gillio said.
The woman was not home during the break-in and police said they did not know how the man carried the heavy boxes away. An ounce of silver was fetching about $13.80 dollars at the end of the trading day Wednesday, according to the New York Mercantile Exchange, which would mean the booty weighed about 136 pounds – or about 34 pounds per box.
The woman waited until after her Sacramento journey to call police, Gillio said. He declined to provide further details because officers are still searching for the man and building a case. The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office is also reviewing the case for possible prosecution, he said.
“We encourage victims to get involved because you never know what the suspect’s motivation is – if they’re violent, addicted to drugs, or what their motivation is,” Gillio said, adding that the motivation in this case was unclear but it appeared to be a case of extreme family drama.
