Woman Charged in Thefts at Open Houses

Homes Not on Market Were Also Targeted, Authorities Say

A Leesburg woman posed as a home buyer at dozens of open houses in Loudoun County and stole items, including prescription drugs, jewelry and firearms, from four of them while real estate agents were elsewhere in the homes, law-enforcement officials said yesterday.

Lauren E. Cooke, 24, who worked for a local moving company as a marketer, also burglarized four houses that were not on the market, officials said. She has been charged with 34 counts, including grand larceny, burglary, possession of a controlled substance and credit card fraud in the theft of items totaling nearly $200,000, they said. She is being held without bond at the Loudoun County Adult Detention Center.

Investigators said they recovered more than 360 pieces of evidence from Cooke's Leesburg apartment last month but said many items had been sold and re-sold through pawn shops in the Washington region. The investigation is continuing, and more charges might be filed, said Kraig Troxell, spokesman for the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office.

"At this point, we have more stolen items than we have reports of victims," Troxell said. "We believe there's more victims out there who either don't know the items are taken or may have moved and believe the items are either misplaced or stolen by the movers."

The first theft was reported in November, Troxell said, but it took a while for law-enforcement officials to detect a pattern and come to suspect that the same person might be stealing from houses on and off the market.

Cooke emerged as a suspect after witnesses at the open houses were interviewed, Troxell said. Investigators then obtained search warrants for her apartment.

According to an affidavit for one of the warrants, Cooke was seen loading a plastic container into a moving truck near her apartment. When interviewed, she "admitted that [the container] was full of stolen items from various locations," the affidavit stated.

Authorities said Cooke was employed by Move-It! Relocation Specialists in Leesburg. Josh Devaughn, who said he was co-owner and manager of the company, said Cooke was not a staff member but had done some contract work for the business, most recently designing and ordering business cards about two months ago.

"After hearing about this, I was obviously very, very shocked," Devaughn said. "From what I know of her, she's an upstanding member of the community. . . . All of her work she's done has been great. . . . They still could have the wrong person. . . . I mean, how many Lauren Cookes are out there?"

Troxell said open houses can present an opportunity for criminals to roam freely in a home with little supervision. He urged sellers to hide valuables before showing their homes.

"The open house allows the ability of outsiders to come in and take a tour of your home, and sometimes they're left alone during that tour," Troxell said. "In one case, a credit card was actually taken and the credit card had a pin with it . . . and she was able to go to the ATM and use that pin and access cash."

Susan Lynch, an agent with Weichert Realtors in Fairfax, said that she always advises clients to pack up and remove all valuables but that showing a home to potential buyers is a balancing act in terms of supervision.

"You can't treat everyone like a criminal when they're walking in, but you try to keep an eye on them as much as you can, and, for the most part, people really are out there looking for houses," she said. "It's like going shopping in the store -- you don't want someone in the dressing room with you."

One Saturday in January, one of the victims, Mabel Meetre, returned to her Ashburn home after a shopping trip with a friend and noticed things missing, including a digital camera, her son's iPod and her checkbook registry. She suspected it was a prank by her children, but when about $500 worth of prescription drugs turned up missing, she knew something was amiss.

The burglar "cleaned out" the house, said Meetre, whose home was not for sale. "It was like, 'Holy cow!' "

Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.