NEWPORT NEWS, Va. - Having the house to yourself is no longer exciting for Anna Marie.
“Every noise I hear, I’m like, ‘OK, what was that?'" said the 15-year-old.
She was home alone sleeping in her room when her mother, who was at work, noticed something strange on the family's security app Wednesday morning.
“I saw on my Ring device that I had somebody come up to my door but didn’t ring the doorbell,” said Lexi Kuhl.
The family lives off 23rd Street in Newport News.
The person she saw was a man wearing a mask and playing with her doorbell around 10:15 a.m.
He stood around for some time and walked away. Kuhl thought nothing of it until she got a call from her daughter around 1 p.m.
“She’s like, ‘Did you put up the Xbox and your laptop?’ And I’m like, 'No!'”
And that’s when Kuhl says it clicked.
“I was like,'The house is broken into,'" she adds.
The family believes the man walked though their neighbors’ yard, jumped the fence and got in through their back door.
“He entered through the back door because the back door was wide open, and so was the laundry room door,” they added.
Lexi says this is the worst time to not have a laptop.
“To help my kids with schoolwork, contact teachers and stuff like that” she adds.
She’s glad her daughter is okay.
“It's a scary thought of what could’ve happened to my 15-year-old daughter and I wasn’t even here to protect her,” said Kuhl.
She has some advice for parents now that children will be learning from home virtually.
“Make sure you let your children know that if someone comes to your door, not to answer it!”
Newport News Police say they don’t have any details on the suspect.
We asked Kuhl if anyone else was at her front door. Surveillance video shows the mailman was there right before 10:30 a.m. but got back into his car.
“You can replace items, but you cannot replace a life,” she adds.
