DELRAY BEACH — City police are searching for three men who allegedly targeted an older woman in a distraction theft this week.
The men stole jewelry from the woman Wednesday while posing as pest control exterminators, police said. According to a Facebook posting by the police department, a man in his 20s knocked on a 79-year-old woman’s door Tuesday and told her that he and two others would be back the following day to do an extermination at the house behind hers. On Wednesday afternoon, two other men reportedly knocked on the woman’s door and told her they would need to spray her grass for brown recluse spiders.
One of the men was believed to be in his 50s and the other was in his 70s, police said.
The men asked the woman for a bucket of hot water and followed her into her laundry room. One of the men sprayed an unknown substance on the woman’s hands, police said. He quickly apologized and told the woman to remove her rings and wash her hands.
One of the men then distracted the woman while the other slipped into her bedroom and stole jewelry, including a ring that the woman had just taken off, police said.
The woman told police all three men spoke English with a heavy accent and they also may have been speaking in Greek or Romanian.
Police are asking residents to use caution when answering an unexpected knock at the door. Residents should avoid giving such persons access to their homes. Anyone who believes they may have encountered the suspects, or has been a victim of a similar distraction theft, is asked to call the nearest law enforcement agency.
