HOUSTON – One Houston woman thought she was doing the right thing by hiding her belongings in her car before going grocery shopping, but little did she know a thief was watching her every move.
She came to shop at the Walmart Neighborhood Market in southwest Houston, but when she got back into her car it was broken into and her personal belongings stolen.
"I was thinking this could not be happening, it just couldn't," said victim Chere Anderson.
She considers herself an alert and cautious person. So when she parked in a crowded parking lot of the Walmart last Friday and discreetly put her purse on the back floorboard of her car, she had no reason to think that anything could go wrong.
"I was thinking it's in the car and needs to be covered and I had a jacket and placed the jacket over," Anderson said.
While her mother was shopping in the store, Anderson ran inside for a few minutes. They came outside together and it's when they were loading groceries they suddenly realized something was wrong.
"It was glass everywhere.I look up and had an unbelievable feeling that I had been violated, something terrible had just happened," she told us.
It appears crooks had been in the parking lot and watching her actions the entire time. As soon as she left her car, the crooks shattered the window on the passenger side, leaving glass on the ground and all over the car seat. They took her purse, phone and wallet.
Before Anderson had a chance to cancel her credit cars, they were used at a gas station.
"They filled with ninety dollars and a car with forty and they gave me the address and so I knew exactly where they were," said Anderson.
The next day, not knowing what happened, her sister called her cell phone and another woman answered. She claimed she found Anderson's purse and cell phone by a dumpster. Anderson and her husband met the woman at a fire station.
"I think a weight was lifted when I got some of my things back because I was praying about my ID and my phone. Everything else was replaceable and I was OK with it being gone," she said.
Still the incident has left her shaken. She's warning others to be careful -- never leave belongings, even covered up and hidden in your vehicle, because crooks could be watching the entire time.
Security cameras, according to what Anderson says the store manager told her, captured the entire incident. She hopes police use that information to catch the crooks.