Theft of parcel from porch was ‘a game,’ not theft, says woman caught on video

Less than 24 hours after a Langley woman posted a video to Facebook of a thief stealing a parcel off her front porch in the middle of the day, Courtney Thomas’s UPS delivery was returned in the middle of the night.

In the original video, a woman, dressed in dark clothing and carrying a smartphone, approaches the house, picks up the parcel off-camera, throws it in the truck’s back seat and then gets in the passenger side of a blue Chevy Tahoe.

There was no video of the woman’s return visit because of an overnight power failure in the area, Thomas said. But there was a note.

“Hello — let me explain myself and my action,” the note began. “Okay so there you have your package returned original packaging unopened (sic). I did not steal it. In fact it was all apart of some stupid scavenger Halloween thing.”

“Anyway the point is it wasn’t mine and it never shoulda happened — yet it really did — that being said my apologies to your residence or (sic) any inconveniences this might have caused, truly,” the note continued. “Enjoy the day. Thanks and again truly this was a game not theft.”

Thomas discovered the package Thursday, along with the note, which she shared to Facebook. She said she was baffled by it all.

“I’m dumbfounded, really,” said Thomas. “She snuck into my yard in the middle of the night when there was a power outage, and returned the package.”

As for the scavenger-hunt explanation, Thomas isn’t convinced.

“If it’s a weird scavenger hunt, it’s still against the law,” Thomas said. “I was not part of the game. (...) Something of mine was taken without permission; that’s pretty clear-cut theft.”

Thomas credited the speedy return to the power of social media, but more so to her motion-detecting camera, which caught the thief in the act.

“I’m tired of being a victim,” she said. “I got my package back in less than 24 hours.”

I did not steal it. In fact it was all apart of some stupid scavenger Halloween thing.