Two Central Campus apartments were entered illegally between the hours of 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. on Sunday morning.
The first occurred at 11 p.m., when the robber entered a third-floor apartment through a sliding glass door, said junior Traci King, the apartment’s resident. The suspect was described as a “male with a medium, dark complexion wearing a gray t-shirt and denim shorts,” according to a Duke Alert sent at around 3 a.m. Sunday. The suspect then rummaged around the kitchen and living room before entering the dark bedroom, where King was lying in bed. The man fumbled with multiple light switches before turning on one of the bedside lamps and seeing the apartment’s owner. Upon seeing the resident, the suspect apologized and left the apartment.
“I think he wasn’t expecting someone to be in here, he just wanted to grab stuff quickly and leave. He saw me and he didn’t really want to be there,” King said. “He didn’t pull anything on me. I think I almost startled him by being there.”
Although the suspect did leave once he encountered King, Caitlin Plaut, King’s roommate who was not present at the time of the robbery, said the man took two pairs of sunglasses and King’s wallet.
She noted that three incidents of robbery happened on the same night. Aside from King and Plaut’s apartment, another Central Campus apartment was entered by an unknown man and, according to Plaut, a house off-campus was robbed as well.
“It’s possible that there were a group of people working together. It happens exactly at the time when people should be out,” King said. “It was too early for him to really expect me to be asleep because I normally wouldn’t be on a Saturday night at that time.”
King said that she called the police immediately after the robbery, and they arrived within minutes. She also said the police took fingerprints of the entire apartment, pictures of the bedroom where the interaction occurred and then stayed with King until everything had been sorted out.
John Dailey, chief of the Duke University Police Department, could not be reached for comment in time for publication.
The resident coordinator checked in and asked how her parents would react, King noted.
“Central Campus’ resident coordinator…specifically asked me, ‘How do you think your parents are going to react—are they going to be mad? Are they going to freak out?’” King said.
The police told King that Duke’s campus is an “easy target” because students leave various items lying around their living spaces, she said.
Joe Gonzalez, associate dean for Housing, Dining and Residence Life, wrote in an email Monday that the two incidents were similar in that the suspects gained access through unlocked doors.”
The Duke Alert reported the same information, but King noted that she was unsure if her door was, in fact, unlocked.
Although the police questioned King directly after the incident, the residents noted that several pieces of information stated in the Duke Alert were incorrect or vague. The alert stated that an “unknown male came into their apartments” but did not mention any details of a robbery, though some of Plaut and King’s items were taken.
Plaut noted that the most surprising part of the incident was that she never expected it to happen to her.
“You don’t expect to wake up with somebody in your room. When I first moved in, where our building is, it’s really sketchy,” Plaut said. “Since freshman year, we would always see emails saying there’s an incident on Central Campus… but I didn’t think we’d get broken into.”
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