Our Peace of Mind is Broken

UPDATE: As of February 17, 2020, I have gathered the complete names of the individuals involved. The alias Toto person was Raymond Flores Bosque and Von Tad-y’s complete name is Aaron Vaughn Tad-y, not spelled Von.

It was a typical morning on February 13th. I woke up, drank my coffee and was getting ready to clock in for work. It was Thursday and Ralph barely had any sleep the night before because his previous boss had chatted with him in the wee hours of dawn.

As I was finishing my cup of coffee, Ralph was just heading off to bed. It was also the day of the Parent-Teacher meeting at my son’s school and I had planned to send my proxy for the meeting; Jenjen, who was getting ready to head to school at the time.

I opened my YI Home app for PC like I always do daily. It is an application on my computer that allows me to view seamlessly live and cloud footage from all my YI Home cameras. I don’t have the usual CCTV surveillance set up, I just own a couple of YI surveillance cameras because they have always worked for me and accessing them when I’m away from home is so easy. I have a couple of surveillance set-up inside my home. Most importantly, I set one up in my father’s bedroom so I can see and hear him calling for me when he needs me.

As soon as I opened the app, much to my confusion, the kitchen camera was not turning on. The app says the camera has been disconnected! I thought it was just a glitch so I kept refreshing the camera button. When it was clear that it was not going to easily get back up, I went out to the physical location and found that the cable has been detached!

Honestly, the first thing that came to my mind was my son. I instantly assumed he must have turned it off because he did something to one of the cats. My son doesn’t like cats and he’s annoyed at how many we have here. They’re not even our pets. They’re just stray cats that we allow to stay in our premises just so they could have food, water and warm bed to stay in.

I went back into the bedroom and announced to Ralph, who was already half-asleep, that the camera has been disconnected! Without opening his eyes, he said “have Jenjen count the cats and kittens.” He was also thinking about the same thing.

I called Jenjen and instructed her exactly what Ralph ordered. Even Jenjen laughed at the instruction. I reconnected the surveillance cable and went back to my computer. The mood was still very much normal at the time until an idea popped into my head: I want to see what Ken did exactly or when he decided to cut off the connection! So I checked the saved footages before the transmission was cut.

In the middle of rewinding and fast-forwarding, I caught a glimpse of slender-bodied individuals flashing in the monitor screen. Huh? I hit pause to stare at the image of a young boy standing at the top of our stairs against the window.

WHO IS THAT???

My brain was still trying to rationalize the situation, making me think it was simply Dylan, Ken’s cousin and my brother’s son. Yeah, it’s probably Dylan…then I checked the timestamp… at 11:30PM??? What was Dylan doing up in our floor at that time? I looked at the face again… hmmm… my heart was beating loudly …. this isn’t Dylan… my brain was now yelling at me followed by an abnormally faster heartbeat. I fast forwarded a little bit and saw another boy together with the first one, they looked like they were being discreet and checking something out.

Suddenly, a realization hit me in the head: there were strangers in our house in the middle of the night!

“Oh my God!!!” I said in a high-pitched voice that got Ralph to fully wake up and sit up from laying down. “There were people who broke into our house last night!!!“

Jenjen must have heard my scream because she hurriedly joined us inside the room to review the footage. The connection was cut off after midnight. But the timestamp of the break-in started at 11:20PM.

Ralph was furious! He immediately changed his clothes. “Call the cops!” he said “I’m still going to the police station, but call them anyway”.

I rummaged through his office desk’s drawer because I remembered I saw the phone number of Hinigaran PNP on a piece of paper in there days ago. “It’s in my cellphone!” he added. When I finally got to call, the number wasn’t working. So I had to check the other numbers of Hinigaran PNP that I have kept in my own directory.

I felt like my entire body was shaking as I was waiting for someone to answer the call. When the call finally got through, I was able to relay the whole incident over the phone. Thankfully, the cops were very quick to respond. They arrived less than 10 minutes in our house. They then went over the window where the first boy had broken into and they repeatedly reviewed the saved footage.

Fortunately for us, the footage was somehow clear because Jenjen was able to identify the identities of the two teenagers: One was known to be “Toto“, the brother of LoveLove who used to come over and do my manicure and pedicure. The other one is Aaron Von Tad-y. He is the nephew of my brother’s wife! I personally know Aaron Von but I don’t know the other one.

The cops left to search and pick up those two. They took my contact details so they could notify me when to proceed to the police station. But it didn’t take long until the first boy was found. Ralph told me to get dressed because the cops came back and informed him about it.

Upon arriving to the police station, I saw the young boy in tears sitting with his parents. I think he cried even more when he saw me and Ralph. The father was apparently yelling at him and the mother was just there, listening. The main investigator then approached me and asked for the CCTV footage. A couple of cops joined in to see it.

“Huh! It’s as clear as day!” I heard one of them laughingly teased the young boy. “You’re the star of the video here!” one of the cops added.

The cop who was there earlier in our house directed me to approach the boy. Both his parents moved away so I can talk to him. I remember feeling a mixture of pity and anger. Pity because the boy looked so young. Anger because this was the very same person who broke into our window!

The first thing that came out of my mouth was “Why did you beak into my house?“

The boy then let out another cry then said that he didn’t really want to do it. He was just bullied and forced by his accomplice Aaron Von.

I didn’t buy it. I remember seeing his facial expressions in one of the clips where he seemed to have been enjoying what he was doing. He was certainly not being forced to break in.

He kept insisting that Von was the one who opened the door for him when I have him on video clearly being the one who first broke in and then opened the main door for the second one to join. There’s no escaping that truth.

Minutes later, his mother joined in on the conversation. I really do not know her at all but she kept saying she has worked for us in the past and that she knows me very well. Hmmnn… could it be that both the mother and the son are pathological liars? I have never even seen this woman in my life!

Perhaps noticing my refusal to admit that I know her, she clarified that she has worked for my mother when my mother was still alive. She was very chatty. She even knelt down and asked for forgiveness in behalf of her son!

More cops arrived later carrying the accomplice, Von Tad-y. Unlike the other one, Von was just chill; no signs of remorse at all! When the cops were questioning him, he said that they had planned to break into our house since last week while they were inside a computer cafe. They originally planned it with another teenager named Justin, but only Von and Toto were able to make it.

Because they’re minors, the police can only endorse the case to Department of Social Welfare and Development. The cop who was handling it though was very thorough and very professional. She had the teenagers make a list of the items that they stole from us. At the time, I was not yet sure exactly the accurate details of the items that were stolen from me given the commotion.

The cop later ordered the parents to pay the estimated total of the grocery items they have disclosed which was about Php480 multiplied to two. Despite everything, the culprits didn’t experience any jail time! Which, I must say, is exactly why they just keep doing it. Apparently, this was not the first time they have done it. They admitted to the cops that they have robbed two variety stores before they made a stop at our house that night.

It’s now February 16th, four days after the incident. Those kids are just freely roaming around town. We have discovered more items missing besides the ones they have disclosed to the police. Apart from the items that were actually stolen, these kids have no idea the severity of damage they have caused me; my piece of mind. My house has always been my sanctuary. I do not enjoy going out. I am a home-body person. I find peace on being home, away from the hustle and bustle of our slowly-developing town. But I don’t feel safe in my own home anymore. A little sound of footsteps outside of our bedroom at night now scares the living hell out of me and for that, I don’t think I can ever truly forgive them for victimizing me and my family.

I really hope that one day the law would lower the age of criminal liability. These kids know they won’t be penalized anyway so they have the guts to commit such despicable offence over and over.