Gilroy
– Burglars were so intent on stealing $300,000 of merchandise
from a downtown jewelry store that they knocked a hole in the
store’s wall to gain access sometime Tuesday night or early
Wednesday morning.
By Lori Stuenkel
Gilroy – Burglars were so intent on stealing $300,000 of merchandise from a downtown jewelry store that they knocked a hole in the store’s wall to gain access sometime Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning.
“They just chiseled their way through the wall,” said Robert Littlejohn, owner of Littlejohn’s Jewelry on Monterey Street, pointing to a two-foot by one-foot rectangle near the floor, covered with cardboard.
The suspect or suspects had tried a different portion of the exterior wall on the east side of the 8220 Monterey St. building before gaining access just behind the store’s safe and seven display cases that were filled with rings, bracelets and other jewelry.
How much was taken?
“Ten years of profit,” Littlejohn said.
He did not know exactly what was taken, but said there were 500 to 600 rings alone in the display cases, plus other items like bracelets and necklaces. The burglars broke the cases’ locks to take the items. The safes were unopened.
Police said they have no suspects.
The store’s alarm sounded between 1 and 2 Wednesday morning, but Littlejohn said he thinks the suspects started chipping their way into the store a few hours before that, after talking to some of the store’s neighbors.
“They saw a red light, like a red bike light, out on the corner of the building at about 11:30,” he said.
Most of the display cases were filled Wednesday afternoon with other pieces of jewelry Littlejohn had been keeping in a safe.
“Nothing of customers (was taken),” he said. “I keep that in a big safe.”
Littlejohn, who has run the store for 29 years in Gilroy and for more than a decade at its current location, said this was not the first time he’s been burglarized.
“Three days after I opened here, they came in through the ceiling,” he said. “That was nothing. That was $3,000.”
He said his insurance policy will cover about one-third the losses he sustained in the burglary.
