SANTA ANA, Calif. (WKRC) – A couple returned home from vacation to learn that their home had allegedly been destroyed by their house-sitters, and an extremely valuable baseball signed by Babe Ruth had been stolen.
Barbara and Dave Bauer hired a pair of house-sitters from trustedhousesitters.com to take care of their dogs, Bader and Sophie, while they took a trip to Spain. To their horror, the couple returned home to find their home completely trashed.
“Dirty dishes in the sink, broken glass on the countertop,” Barbara recalled. “We were very aware that they had rearranged everything in our garage.”
Random items like bathmats and trash cans weren’t where the Bauers left them, and family photos had been flipped upside down. The most distressing discovery came when the Bauers found their hidden firesafe had been emptied.
“The safe was hidden but they rummaged and managed to find the safe,” Dave said. “It was a key safe so the key was hidden up top in some other items. So they found that rummaged found that and opened the safe up.”
The safe contained a valuable baseball signed by sports legend Babe Ruth and sports cards with a total value of $100,000, all now missing.
Investigators connected the Bauers’ case to other victims with similar stories about house-sitters stealing valuables. Police quickly pinned the robbery on the same couple accused of the other crimes, Luis Antepara and Ashley Luhrig.
“Because these suspects have changed their names and had moved from house to house, easily able to gain the trust of the people they were staying with,” Sergeant Gerard McCann of the Orange County Sheriff’s Office said. “We believe they were doing it for a while, and we believe there’s other victims that just haven’t realized that they’re missing their expensive items right now.”
Police said they discovered the Babe Ruth baseball when they arrested the suspects, in addition to many other valuable items with unknown owners.
The TrustedHousesitters site said in a statement that the suspects were “skilled criminals that found a way to steal identities and circumvent our robust processes.”