Man shares close encounter with alleged repeat home burglar
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — It’s not often more than a dozen neighbors agree on something, but that is certainly the case in one northeast Albuquerque neighborhood.
The neighborhood set their sights on the arrest of one man – and it happened last week.
Police arrested Dorsett Matthews. He is accused of multiple home burglaries – neighbors and detectives believe there are more victims out there.
Most of the alleged burglaries happened in a two-mile radius. Neighbors’ reports about them went wild on the Nextdoor app.
One of those neighbors is Addison Foskey. Foskey says it was “around 11:45 in the afternoon, just about lunchtime” and his girlfriend and her mom were in the front yard, making the inside of the house look seemingly empty.
Foskey was in the den, with a perfect view of his back porch.
“I looked up just in time to see a man walking right through here headed straight for the back door there,” Foskey said.
His dog “Iggy” gave him the first warning.
“I start hollering, I get up. And he definitely wasn’t expecting me, and he couldn’t see me through that door,” Foskey said.
Foskey recognized the man from other neighbors’ recent posts on Nextdoor. Foskey also posted about the experience.
“I was contacted by a bunch of different folks who’d experienced the same thing, or we’re actively trying to put this together,” he said. “You don’t really know who your neighbors are on either side of your house. But in this case, everybody had the exact same concern.”
Police tracked down the suspect last week. They identified him as Dorsett Matthews, a man accused of at least two other burglaries where he made it inside nearby homes. While inside, he allegedly stole cash and was even violent toward an elderly man.
“It’s not fun to have to keep your doors locked when you’re at home. But it’s it just makes sense. It’s just being prepared now,” Foskey said.
Foskey believes his family is one of more than a dozen victims total. He hopes the whole group will learn a lesson.
“Never assume that it’s not going to happen to you, I guess, is the best way to put it. Because it could happen to anybody at any time,” he said.
Prosecutors filed a motion to keep Matthews in jail until his trial. A judge will rule on that during a hearing tentatively happening Tuesday afternoon.
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