Cheney Mason / Winonan
Winona State University student Claire Nelson woke up to two males in her room on Friday, Oct. 8 around 2:45 a.m. robbing her house near Broadway Street, after she and her roommates left their door unlocked.
“I woke up, and there were two people in my room,” Nelson, a sophomore, said. “One was staring at me, and the other was going through my closet.”
Nelson explained how she thought she was dreaming when she woke up frightened, so she did not scream for her roommates right away.
“I got up and couldn’t find my phone,” Nelson said. “So that’s when I got really scared and woke all my roommates up and said ‘I think we got robbed.’”
Nelson said that her glasses, checkbook, iPad and phone were the only things missing at first glance in her room.
“I still wasn’t 100 percent sure if I was just being crazy and seeing things,” Nelson said. “So when I looked over at my closet, the curtain was open in a way I remember seeing the person go through it.”
Nelson’s roommate, Winona State sophomore Nicole Matykiewicz was in also the house at the time of the robbery.
“They came into my room, too, and unzipped my backpack and took my school Macbook laptop and charger,” Matykiewicz said. “They only stole electronics and didn’t touch our purses or anything else.”
Matykiewicz remembers being afraid and confused at the night’s events and has heard from neighbors that their home was not the only one robbed that night.
The police also told the roommates other robberies had occurred in town that night.
“The house that got broken into across the street, the door was locked and they broke through their window,” Matykiewicz said. “I don’t want to live in my house anymore.”
Matykiewicz said she and her roommates were able to get a decent look at the people robbing their home.
“They are a group of four African American males we think that are breaking into all these houses,” Matykiewicz said. “We were all home and didn’t even realize they had broken in.”
Matykiewicz explained the door to their home was left unlocked for a returning roommate who did not have their key.
“It was a weird night because we always lock the front door and our room doors.” Nelson said.
After the shock wore off of what was happening, they called the police to report what had happened.
“When the cops left, I called my sister to pick me up because I didn’t want to sleep at my house,” Nelson said.
Along with the electronics they took, the robbers also stole the roommates’ sense of security, according to Nelson.
“It’s still pretty creepy sleeping in my room at night,” Nelson said. “But I make sure to lock the house door and my room door every night now.”
Since she had safeware insurance for her school laptop, Matkykiewicz was able to have it replaced for free, but all of the other electronics that were stolen were not replaced through the university.
“My roommate has to pay $200 for a new phone even though she has phone insurance,” Matykiewicz said. “[The suspects] swiped the phones clean, so they sell them for brand new.”
Nelson added authorities have not caught the suspects responsible and have no further information about the robbery.
-By Cheney Mason