HOUSTON – Investigators need your help tracking down a robbery suspect that’s now being referred to as the “sock puppet bandit.”
The unidentified man is caught on camera both inside and outside a home in northwest Houston.
Security cameras inside of the home on Villa Hills Drive show the man walking around with stolen items in his hands. What stood out to the people that live in the home was that the suspect wasn’t wearing gloves like a typical crook.
Instead, he was wearing socks over his hands while pilfering through their belongings.
Whitfield: “He had socks on his hands. Socks.”
Gage: “You ever see that one before?
Whitfield: “I’ve never seen that one before. They’re dubbing him the Sock Puppet Bandit.”
Whitfield Smith watched the man meander around his home around 11:30 a.m. while his wife was inside.
“She’s noticing this guy approaching the door, ringing the doorbell like a hundred times,” Smith told KPRC 2. “I’m trying to tell my wife to do something to scare him away.”
The man walked away but then snuck through a neighbor’s backyard to break in through the back of the home. Thankfully, Smith’s wife, Taneshia, had the intuition to leave the home and go to a neighbor’s house before the man broke in.
“He hoped over this fence, broke this window and just crawled right in,” Smith said.
Inside, the sock puppet bandit had a field day, allegedly stealing everything he could get his sock-covered hands on.
“He’s taking his time,” he said. “He’s going through the house and he’s literally picking what he wants like he’s shopping at Walmart.”
All in, he stole all of their Christmas gifts, two guns, diamond jewelry, $500 cash and more.
The victims say he poured more salt in the wound by tossing a glass vase through a window before leaving the house and hopping the back fence.
However, this isn’t the first time the Smiths have been the target of alleged thieves. Prior to moving to Houston, the couple was the target of armed robbers in July 2022 at their home in Atlanta. Security camera footage there shows Smith confronting six armed men trying to break into their home. The encounter ended in a shootout.
“They weren’t trying to steal the radio,” he said.
All jokes aside, this time around the Sock Puppet Bandit left the family out roughly $10K and their Christmas tree empty just days before the holiday.
The family just hopes this crook’s peculiar style might help investigators spoil his Christmas.
“You’re going to have your day. You will have your day,” he said.
If you have any information that could help detectives solve this case, you can submit an anonymous tip to Crime Stoppers of Houston online or by calling 713-222-TIPS (8477).
