UW-Madison freshman Lara Kohler did not realize when she awoke at 5 a.m. Saturday that her Ogg Hall dorm room had been the scene of a burglary in the night.
Later that morning, she found $5 had been taken from her purse and $10 from her roommate's desk. Others in the hall said they were missing $60 to $80.
The UW Police are investigating 11 burglaries of rooms in Ogg Hall and Sellery Hall. The burglaries probably occurred between midnight and 5 a.m. April 24. The suspect reportedly tried doorknobs to find unlocked rooms and spoke to people in at least three of these rooms, according to UW Police Sgt. Tamara Kowalski.
\The person was just checking doors to see what was available, and opened the door and happened to, you know, find an occupied room with an awake person in it and ... tried to explain their presence there and had a couple words with the people and said 'oops,' you know, 'wrong room,' and walked out,"" Kowalski said.
Kohler said neither she nor her roommate heard anyone enter the room. She said sunlight streaming through a wide-open door awakened her but she did not immediately connect the open door to a robbery.
""I didn't really realize, I thought that maybe our door had come open or something, even though my roommate said she locked it, so I was kind of confused,"" Kohler said.
""So I just got back in bed, but then when I woke up later that morning, my purse was on the floor. I looked down the hall because a bunch of people from my house were down there and they were all talking about how they were missing money and someone had been in their room last night,"" she said.
Kowalski said the suspect, described as a 5'10' male about 20 years old with a light complexion and dark spiky hair, took cash and some personal property from the robbed rooms. She said police are reviewing residence hall surveillance tapes in addition to gathering information from hall residents.
University Housing Director Paul Evans said he understood that most or all of the rooms had been unlocked when they were robbed.
""One of the things we've always harped on is to make sure you lock your room door,"" Evans said. ""If the students had done that, then this wouldn't have happened.\
