Beech Tree News Network

A Butler County middle-schooler is safe after a scary incident in the Brooklyn community on Thursday afternoon. At approximately 3:30 on Thursday the juvenile—name withheld by request—got off the school bus at her home in the Brooklyn community. When she entered her house she noticed some things out of place and was shocked to startle two burglars in the act of ransacking the home. The quick-thinking youngster fled the home and went to the home of her neighbor, Trina Bates. Bates called the Butler County Sheriff’s Office and then accompanied the 13-yr-old back to the home.
Kathy Lawrence said her daughter doesn’t always go to her house after school, and thinks the burglars chose her home because they assumed no one would be at home.  Lawrence worries that other kids like her daughter have to come home to an empty house after school, but is proud her daughter ran to her neighbor for help.
She is relieved her daughter wasn’t hurt in the break-in, but shocked and disappointed that something like this could happen in Butler County. Lawrence said, “I’ve always thought Butler County was a safe place, but not after yesterday.”
According to Lawrence the thieves gained entry to the home through an end window. She said she had “too much jewelry” and that the duo cleaned out several jewelry boxes and took a safe she had under her bed, along with some other items, many of which can’t be replaced. “They took my class ring. Some things you just can’t go out and replace,” said Lawrence.
Sheriff Scottie Ward said it’s important for parents of ‘latch-key kids’—youngsters that return to an empty home following school—to make sure children know what to do when things go wrong. “Tell the kids if something seems out of place when they go in the house to go to the neighbors, other than that when you go in the house lock the doors and don’t’ answer the door for nobody unless you know exactly who it is. ”
Butler County Sheriff’s Deputy Trey Flener is investigating the break-in.