Andrea Medeiros
amedeiros@abc6.com
A Tiverton woman saw burglars inside her home, then took matters into her own hands. She found a way to trap them while calling for help.
Police said this crime is part of a bigger problem.
Joyce DeCosta talked with a neighbor at her Tiverton home, Friday, about the incident she said changed her life.
"I'm not sleeping at night," said Joyce, "It's scary walking through the house when you're alone. It is."
Joyce came home, Wednesday, to find burglars, but instead of running she made it her mission to stop them.
"I said where is your buddy, and at that point I took my car and blocked my driveway so he couldn't get out," said DeCosta, "And I picked up my cell phone and I dialed 911."
Joyce has lived in her Lewis Street home for more than 20 years, always feeling safe until now. The burglars sliced through her screen and pried it open, ripped her TV's off the wall and grabbed thousands of dollars of jewelry out of her bedroom drawer.
"There has been an increase of break-ins in Tiverton throughout the past four months," said Chief Thomas Blakey, "Partially due to the warm weather, people are not securing their homes, increased price in gold, and of course the economy are contributing factors."
Burglaries in the small town are up by 50 percent, but police said thanks to Joyce the number could go down. They rushed into the neighborhood shortly after her call and caught two of the three men, both from New Bedford, running from her home. Police and neighbors are now calling the mother of two a hero.
"I know it's dangerous," said Joyce, "I've been told that I could have gotten hurt, but I wasn't thinking that way at that point."
Just the day before Joyce was robbed, police caught another repeat burglar in the act using a GPS tracking device.
As of Friday afternoon, police were still looking for the third man who burglarized Joyce's home.
