Police: Elderly targeted in Waynesboro ruses

City police suspect a “very thin” woman has conned her way into three Waynesboro homes this month to steal medication, money and jewelry from elderly and disabled people..

Between Oct. 1 and Oct. 3, three similar thefts raised police suspicions, said Sgt. Kelly Walker. The crimes echo a broader trend of thieves and scammers targeting the elderly, authorities said.

On Oct. 1, a man who uses a wheelchair allowed a woman to enter his apartment in the 800 block of King Avenue after she claimed to be bringing groceries from a church, police said.

“She left him the groceries,” Walker said. “A little while later, maybe half an hour or so, she came back and came on in and said she had left a ring of hers in the bathroom.”

The man spotted the woman rummaging through his nightstand. She bolted with the man’s medications, police said.

Across town the same day, a woman entered an unlocked apartment at Fairfax Hall and stole money from a coffee table, police said. A 70-year-old woman who uses a wheelchair lives in that apartment.

On both occasions, victims described the thief as a woman with short blond hair and a small, “very thin” build, Walker said. At Fairfax Hall, the woman fled in a white and red older-model Ford, police said.

Two days later, a woman matching that description asked to use a woman’s bathroom during a yard sale in the 1700 block of West Main Street. Soon thereafter after, a necklace and earrings were discovered missing from a jewelry storage ball, police said.

A similar home invasion ruse was used in Staunton last month on a much younger victim, Staunton police said. In that case, a Weyers Cave woman was charged after asking that her children be allowed to use strangers’ bathrooms. She then stole medications, police said.