Elderly Woman Robbed In Delaware Snow-Shoveling Scheme

NEW CASTLE, Del. (CBS) -- Seventy-six-year-old Carol Neeves lives alone with her 18-year-old dog Itzy, so when a woman came to her door during the weekend storm offering to shovel her walk, she agreed.

"I was on phone when she came to the door and the door wasn't locked because of the snow and she pushed her way in," Neeves told CBS 3.

Carol paid her $30 on Saturday and allowed the woman help herself to two drinks from her fridge and to use the bathroom.

But the next day the woman returned, this time without a shovel.

"She just pushes her way in that door and nearly knocked me over and I mean, I stumbled but I didn't fall," she recalled.

Carol immediately recognized her as the woman from the day before and was getting increasingly suspicious.

"She went all over the house, in everything. She said, 'can you rent me this bedroom?' I said, 'no! That's that's for my family!" Neeves said.

"Our victim told her numerous times, 'You need to leave. Get out of my house,'" New Castle County Police Corporal Tracey Duffy told CBS 3.

When the woman left, Neeves says her debit card was missing along with money from her wallet and $50 she had in the bedroom.

Within minutes, police were able to trace the charges to a Wawa down the street and grabbed these surveillance photos.

Then the New Castle County officers finished the job the suspect had started.

"I hear somebody shoveling out front and I thought she came back," Neeves said. "It was the policemen shoveling my sidewalk. I cried!"