HOUSTON – When Beverly Noles answered the door to a man claiming he needed to inspect some tree limbs hanging over the fence in her backyard, she never imagined it would cause her so much heartache.
"I should have never opened the door or even talked to anybody,” Noles said.
The Glenshire homeowner had no reason to think he wasn’t the real deal.
“He had old jeans on and work boots on and this vest. I don’t remember what his shirt looked like. This vest with a yellow reflective fabric on it,” Noles said.
She accompanied him to the backyard, behind the garage, a spot where she couldn’t see the back door, which she left unlocked. Noles said at one point, he used his walkie-talkie, claiming his boss was calling him.
“I don't remember exactly what he said, but it wasn't anything that would have alerted me,” Noles said.
As he was leaving some 30 minutes later, he made just one statement to her.
“He just tells me that he works for the city and that he won't be back until Monday morning to cut the limbs,” Noles said.
An hour later, Noles noticed the jewelry drawer in her bedroom had been ransacked and later discovered that four rings, worth more than $6,000, including her mother’s and great-grandmother’s wedding bands, were missing.
It dawned on her that someone else must have come in the back door and taken them while she was out back.
“It's just really disappointing that somebody would do that to anybody,” Noles said.
A city of Houston Public Works spokeswoman told KPRC that all field crews would be in vehicles identified as Public Works, and those vehicles have an ID number of them so they can be tracked. Those crews are also required to show badge identification on them, and the city would never cut down a resident’s tree without prior consent from the homeowner.