Gaston County authorities investigate package thieves

GASTONIA, N.C. — A Gastonia woman watched as thieves stole packages from the front door of her home.

Laura Williams is one of five people in Gastonia who reported thieves stealing packages from their porches Thursday. Two of them were within half a mile of Williams' home.

"It's made me more paranoid," Williams said.

She has a security system that alerts her when someone passes the camera. She was at work when she got the alert on her cellphone and watched live video of the theft.

"I was shocked,” she said. “My co-workers were standing beside me as I was looking at it, and they were like, 'I can't believe somebody's doing this and you are just watching it.'"

A burgundy Saturn pulled up to her home on Kentwood Drive about 3:56 p.m. Thursday.

A man in a green hoodie gets out of the passenger side and grabs a box with a $368 Wi-Fi speaker system delivered to the house by the Postal Service that morning.

"When you zoom in on the picture of the car, it's full of boxes," Williams said.

She told police there was a small pile of boxes found up the street, as though the thieves opened the boxes, took the items inside and left the empty containers behind.

Dallas police said the crime is on the rise because more and more people are buying items online and having them delivered.

They said it's possible the thieves are following delivery trucks.

Earlier this week, a Charlotte police officer living in Dallas had packages stolen from his home while he was at work.

A neighbor spotted the man and woman and she says one of them was Nathlee Wright taking items from her neighbors' homes.

She yelled at them, recorded their license plate number and called police.

A sheriff's deputy stopped their van.

Police said the couple took them to their Gastonia home, where officers found packages taken from several more homes.

Cox Media Group