OKC Neighbors Use Website To Catch Suspected Package Thieves

When UPS delivers packages, you expect the boxes to be at your front door waiting for you.

But for some neighbors in NW Oklahoma City, someone else was waiting for those deliveries.

It's an online community made up only of your neighbors and it's a fairly simple concept. You enter your address, get it verified, and then you're able to see post from neighbors talking about what's going on in your community.

“I posted that on Nextdoor.com, and then it was just like, boom. There were several neighbors that came across and said I had the same thing that happened to me,” said neighbor, Linda Moberly.

But, Moberly says she never imagined the app would lead to this.

“One of my neighbors called and said she's got some pictures, she saw the suspicious looking van,” said Moberly.

A neighbor immediately called Linda to tell her she witnessed a package being stolen off of a front porch moments after UPS dropped it off.

The two suspects then took off in a silver Honda minivan snapped by a neighbor who saw the post. After that phone call, Linda posted an alert telling neighbors what to look out for, and the response was instant.

“I did not know it would go this far,” said Moberly.

Another neighbor unexpectedly caught the package snatchers in the act on video!

The van circled around the street, came back around, and a suspect jumped out of the van, ran to the front porch of the home next door, grabbed the package and took off.

Police connected 46-year-old Lori Ann Johnston and 19-year-old Dacota Martinez with more thefts in the area.

“It allows us to go, hey, we're not alone. Let's band together to get this threat out of our neighborhood,” said Treadwell/Grandview Neighborhood Assoc. Pres., Alonzo Portillo.

“It's just amazing to me that all of us working together, that we can come to something to end like this,” said Moberly.

According to creators of NextDoor.com, there are already more than 190 neighborhoods using the free service in Oklahoma City alone.