Chatham: The following is a message from Morris County Emergency Management:

A burglary occurred this past Monday 3/17 on Jodi Lane between the hours of 10:30am and 3:00pm. No one was home at the time and there were no witnesses to the crime.
There are similarities between this burglary and several others we have experienced in the recent past.
A previous email alerted you to a common method of operation that burglars routinely use to determine if someone is home.
Method: A male knocks or rings the front door bell of the residence to see if anyone is home. If someone is home and answers the door, an excuse is used as to why he knocked. . If no one answers the door, the burglar will then go to the back of the house and force entry. The Susan Drive resident was asked “Have you seen my dog? This subject then named a neighboring street as his place of residence and left while speaking on his cell phone. This leads us to believe that he may have been speaking to an accomplice driving a car in the area.
This is where your help comes in…..Please be vigilant and contact us when you see any suspicious activity in your neighborhood. In many cases, immediate information provided to us by our residents is vital in bringing problems such as this to a successful conclusion.
Please secure all of your valuables…..Put your valuables in a hard to find place other than the master bedroom. The master bedroom has been a common location of theft in the most recent burglaries. Also, if you have an alarm, set it while you are out. If you use a dry cleaning service that will hang clothes on your front door if you are not home, please ask them to leave it in the back so they are not readily visible from the roadway. Please direct UPS or FEDEX to leave packages away from the front or garage doors if you are not home. The Jodi Lane burglary victim averted a significant loss, remembering what they had read in an earlier email about securing valuables in a place other than the master bedroom.
Remember, we need your help…Our partnership is essential!


Steven E. Hennelly
Chief of Police