Smooth criminal sweet talks staff then empties motel room fridge
Victims of a motel burglary are shocked by the ‘‘slick thief’’ who duped a motel worker with a story of an abduction.
Sonya and George Drysdale had all their possessions – down to the half-eaten food in the fridge –stolen from their Hamilton motel room this week.
What was most worrying for the Hawke’s Bay couple was the story the thief fed the young motel worker, who led him straight to the couple’s room.
‘‘This guy was as slick as anything,’’ Sonya Drysdale said after a stressful few days.
‘‘I appreciate theft occurs all of the time, but this is brazen and I don’t think this guy will stop any time soon.’’
The couple were booked into the Anglesea Motel and Conference Centre on Liverpool Street while George was in the city on a six-day business trip.
At 6.30am on Thursday, Sonya left the motel to catch a bus to Auckland. At 8am, her husband left to walk to work. The couple’s car was left at the motel outside their room.
‘‘The thief arrived at 8.30am, so we think he must have been watching us, which is just awful.’’
CCTV footage shows the man entering reception, where he presents a note and room key for the Drysdales’ room to the front desk worker.
He tells the worker that his friend – a woman staying in room 11 – has been abducted.
‘‘He’s arrived already in possession of a room key and spoken
This guy was as slick as anything Sonya Drysdale
to the motelier, and given a story that a woman has been kidnapped, which was a false report,’’ Waikato police Detective Senior Sergeant Will Loughrin said.
The man tells the worker the woman ’’is OK’’, but he has been sent to retrieve her possessions for an early checkout.
The motel worker then directed the man to the Drysdales’ secondfloor room.
The couple lost clothes, shopping, iPads, toiletries and jewellery, which were packed into their luggage and loaded into the man’s green Kia Sportage.
Most upsetting for Sonya was the loss of two journals documenting the lives of the couple’s two daughters, aged 14 and 19.
It wasn’t until George came back from work at 4.30pm that staff realised what had occurred.
‘‘I even went to see the cleaners to see if he had left anything, but he’s so sneaky, he took everything to make it look like we had checked out,’’ Drysdale said.
Motel owner Mark Nolan admitted there were a ‘‘catalogue of errors on our part’’.
‘‘The fact the guy had the key probably meant the reception worker let down his guard - but there are a few things he could have done.
‘‘The first question to ask is what’s her name - [the thief] also presented a note and his id, which was obviously bogus and part of the con.’’
Staff were reviewing three months of guest records to ascertain when one of the keys to the room disappeared.