Police: Woman caught on camera stealing mail from mailbox arrested

A woman caught on surveillance video taking someone else’s mail has been arrested, police said.

Police said Melissa Lucero, 40, was arrested March 26 and faces multiple charges.

Bernard Gifford said he caught a woman stealing from his mailbox in November.

In the video, the woman walks up to Gifford’s mailbox with a child on her back. She opens up the mailbox, reaches inside and pulls out a letter. She then walks and then runs across the street.

Gifford said in his surveillance video, you can see the woman get into what appears to be an older silver colored Jeep Cherokee with bright green rims.

“This is some gutsy people is all I’ve got to say. She’s out at 4:20 in the afternoon. She evidently didn’t know I had cameras all around my house,” said Gifford.

Gifford, a former military police officer, has his home rigged with cameras. He said his neighbor also had his mail stolen in the past, but didn’t have cameras to document the crime like Gifford.

Gifford has reported the woman to police.

This wasn’t the first case of mail theft in the neighborhood.

Peter Locke lives a few houses down from Gifford. Locke says someone stole a letter he was sending to pay his cellphone bill in September. The thief used his bank account number to forge checks and spend more than $2,000.

“We didn’t find out until the following month when we got our monthly statement,” Locke said. “My wife was going through it and saw that the sequence numbers on the checks were way off.”

Locke and Gifford both said they will think twice before putting another check in the mailbox again.

“I think it’s wrong. I grew up back in the 40s and 50s when you could walk up and down the street and be friendly. You can leave your doors unlocked. You were neighborly,” Locke said. “We may set up cameras like our neighbor up the street.”