West Seattle newlyweds burglarized; Wonder if they were targeted for wedding gifts

Instead of enjoying the first weeks of married life, a newlywed couple renting a home in West Seattle feels violated.
A thief, or thieves, targeted the bride and groom in the Arbor Heights neighborhood, taking their wedding cash, gift cards and more.
The groom, who didn't want to be identified or his address revealed, showed KIRO 7 Reporter Amy Clancy his damaged front door on Monday: "The whole framing over here on the inside is busted in," he said.
What you can't see is the fear that remains nearly three days after the crime: "I couldn't sleep the last two nights, you know? I'm up, awake. My wife is trying to get me to go to sleep and I'm sitting here with a damn baseball bat next to my bed."
Late Friday, the couple came home to find their front door smashed open; their home ransacked. Wedding gifts, including $1,300 in cash and $500 in gift cards, had been taken, along with a laptop computer and an iPad full of family photos. Knowing those photos are in the hands of someone he doesn't know particular bothers the groom. "It's violating to know that somebody may be sitting wherever they're sitting, going through my family's and my wife's personal things," he told Clancy. "Makes me livid. Livid."
But Seattle police officers told the couple that the thief might be someone who knew they had wedding gifts.

"With Facebook and Instagram and things like that, they see that we just got married."
Clancy: "And being someone who just got married, the assumption is, you have cash, you have gifts?"
Groom: "Exactly!"
Whoever it was smashed the couple's peace of mind.
A new dead bolt was installed on their front door early Monday.
"I'm not a violent person," the groom said. "I'm not a person that feels I need to have personal weapons in my home to keep my family safe," he told Clancy. "But at this point I do feel like that. And that sucks."
The burglary of the wedding gifts is just one of 13 burglaries reported to the Seattle Police Department in the past week. The victim told his story to Clancy because he wants his West Seattle neighbors to be on the lookout for each other, and to report any suspicious behavior to the SPD.

Want to talk about the news of the day? Watch free streaming video on the KIRO 7 mobile app and iPad app, and join us here on Facebook.

KIRO