Burglary caught on camera in Morningside/Lenox-Park: Not the only incident

ATLANTA - A family in the Morningside/Lenox-Park neighborhood caught their home being burglarized on camera, but they say they are not the only ones in that neighborhood to be targeted. 

In fact, according to data from the Atlanta Police Department, 14 homes in the Morningside/Lenox-Park neighborhood have been broken into this year alone. 

"The phone started blowing up around 3:30 in the morning," said Robert. 

While still on their Fourth of July vacation, Robert and Elaine got a wake-up call no one wants to get. 

"I felt sick to my stomach, seeing pictures of somebody in our home with a flashlight moving really fast," Elaine said. 

The couple asked FOX 5 to only use their first names because they’re worried about being targeted again. 

They watched early videos from their surveillance cameras of their home on Wildwood Road being robbed on Friday morning.

In the video, you can first see the burglar sneaking through their neighbor’s yard to get into their backyard, before coming in through their back doors.

He then goes through their house looking for valuables. Just a couple of minutes later, he exits the home.  

 "He was in and out in four and a half minutes. He targeted our bedroom first thing and took a bunch of jewelry, watches. So it makes you feel sick," Elaine said. 

The couple estimates their losses to be in the tens of thousands of dollars. 

But they’re not the only ones.

Another neighbor there reached out to us and said her home had been broken into back in February.  

We then looked at data from APD and found that 14 home break-ins have been reported in the Morningside/Lenox-park neighborhood just since the start of 2024. 

"We've had about 10 neighbors reach out to us just in the last 24 hours talking about similar M.O., similar time frames in the night, on holidays. Always on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, between the hours of 2 and 4 a.m., always under 6 minutes. There's a lot of similarities," Robert and Elaine said. 

The two say the thief is even wearing the same clothes and backpack as seen in other neighbors’ surveillance video, leading them to believe it’s the same person behind most of them.  

"But I do fear this guy has been emboldened by his success. And I think it's not going to take much time before he's wrong about somebody being home and this could turn violent," Robert said. 

Robert and Elaine hope the police will do more to try and stop the burglars who seem to be targeting this neighborhood.

So far, Robert says he hasn’t been able to get a hold of APD investigators. 

FOX 5 reached out to APD about this, and they were able to confirm they were investigating the burglaries but said we would have to follow up on Monday for more information.