Anyone who’s ever had to clean up after an egging attack knows it’s no fun to wipe up a goopy mess of yolks, whites and cracked shells adorning your home or car. But one Cleveland house has had more than the usual isolated egging, as the target of about 100 incidents in the last year in a mysterious spate of attacks that have police stymied.
An 85-year-old man’s Cleveland-area home has suffered some bad damage, after a spate of egging attacks that started in March 2014 have continued on for a year, reports Cleveland.com. No one can figure out who is behind the attacks, which sometimes happen more than once a day.
“The accuracy is phenomenal,” the homeowner, who lives with his two adult children in Euclid, says. “Because almost every time when it’s nice weather and they launch five or six of these at a time, they almost invariably hit the front door.”
Several times a week, someone pelts the two-story home with eggs, always after dark, and usually in attacks that last about 10 minutes each time.
Police and the man think the eggs are being launched from a block or two away, meaning this is no quick drive-by from kids in a car. Though other homes nearby have been hit as a result, it doesn’t appear any neighbors have been targeted.
“Somebody is deeply, deeply angry at somebody in that household for some reason,” a Euclid police lieutenant says. His department has spent a year working on the case — even staking it out undercover, canvassing the neighborhood and sending the eggshells for testing. Investigators have also installed a surveillance camera on the house. All to no avail, so far.
Last year while an officer was taking a report at the house, a slew of eggs hit the house, with one hitting him in the foot.
“The man hours put into that investigation were huge and one of the reasons it’s so frustrating that we don’t have somebody right now that we can criminally charge,” the police lieutenant says. The culprit or culprits will ultimately face charges of felony vandalism and criminal damaging.
For now, the house’s siding on the front of the home is destroyed, crusted with dried egg residue that’s stripping off the paint. But while the homeowner used to clean up after each egging, it’s happening so often that he just can’t keep up. He’s going to wait to repair things if the eggings ever stop, because he says his insurance company is refusing to settle a claim until the guilty party is found.
Despite their frustrations over pouring hundreds of man hours into the case, police say they’re not giving up, bumping up the reward for information from $500 to $1,000.
“We’re not going to let it go,” the police rep says. “We’ll continue to put effort into it until we figure something out.”
More than 100 stealth egg attacks baffle one Euclid homeowner and police [Cleveland.com]
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist
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