Four Mile resident Edwina Kramer has gone through a terrible experience. She, her husband and their daughter have been robbed in their own home while they slept.

Phycologists will tell you she should feel a sense of anger towards the thieves, but Edwina is feeling the complete opposite. She forgives the young men who broke into her home in the early hours of the morning and stole two cars after wandering around the house searching for keys and looking for other valuables.

Edwina says “I feel very sad for these people who would sink so low to do this to ordinary people, they must have had a horrible upbringing and need professional help, I hope they get it”

The culprits, from out of the area, stole a Subaru Outback and a Suzuki Swift, handbags, and cash.
Edwina told Newsport the thieves broke in through a kitchen window by cutting the fly wire and were so quiet, no one in the house woke up.

Edwina’s car was in the garage and her daughter’s vehicle was parked on the street, but the thieves had the keys, so it was an easy heist.

It’s thought they entered the family home between one and three am. Even her guard parrot Honey Blossom was in a deep sleep and failed to squark a warning. “I think we need a guard dog” says Edwina. “The cockatiel is only very young, a dog is the way to go”.

Police found Edwina’s badly damaged car in thick bush at Yarrabah, her daughters car located close by with handbag inside, complete with credit cards but minus her cash of over a hundred dollars. It’s thought her vehicle was also used as a getaway car in thefts in Edmonton

Personal items tossed out of cars

On their way out of Port Douglas the car thieves littered the Captain Cook Highway with personal correspondence and odds and ends from both vehicles. The family found papers including servicing documents thrown out of the cars at Craiglie.

“A kind person at Palm Cove even retrieved some items that were tossed out of my car there and returned them” says Edwina.

We also know something about the thieves’ music likes and dislikes. “They threw out my John Farnham CD, can you believe that sort of taste in music? Edwina joked.

Top cop warns residents to harden up

Officer in charge of Port Douglas Police Damian Meadows told Newsport four juveniles have been arrested and charged over the matter. “Their ages range from ten up to seventeen says Sgt Meadows. “In this particular case these are allegations at this stage but generally speaking please don’t describe this sort of thing as joy riding, this is car theft pure and simple”

Sgt Meadows also told us about a family at Cooya Beach who have had three cars stolen in the last six months.

"People need to start changing their habits up here in the Douglas Shire and take security seriously” he says. “these types of crooks can go to a hundred homes in Cairns and break into two, but when they come up here and check out six houses they’ll get into five”. The top cop says residents are still leaving keys out where anyone can find them, leaving front and back doors unlocked with cash and valuable lying about.

“We are the soft underbelly for these criminals, it’s time we got a lot smarter” Sgt Meadows said.

Advice from Edwina

Edwina says she will be increasing security in her home big time. “We are going to install proper security mesh on the windows and get some CC TV security, which these days only costs a couple of hundred dollars and of course we won’t be leaving keys around the house in bowls anymore, we’ve certainly learnt our lesson the hard way”.