Woman catches struggling porch pirate and rekindles his ‘faith in humanity’

An Indiana woman set out to find the person who snatched several Christmas packages from her porch, but neither of them expected what would happen when they actually met.

On Monday night, Sabrina Schroeder was expecting the delivery of a few packages. Although they were marked “delivered,” she said, the packages were nowhere to be found.

Schroeder decided to check her surveillance cameras and spotted a man approaching her home and swiping her deliveries, WTHR reports.

Instead of accepting the loss, the 32-year-old set out on her bike with her boyfriend in search of the culprit. They found their suspect in an alleyway. He said his name was Cole.

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“I saw Cole and kind of approached him and just said: ‘Hey, you grabbed my packages. I’d like them back now,'” she told the broadcast station. “I could just see his face crumble a little bit, and he said that he had thrown them in the bushes.”

Cole, who declined to give WTHR his last name in case his family saw the story, didn’t try to get away.

“I just figured there’s no point in lying now,” Cole said. He took Schroeder to the spot where he’d thrown the packages away.

“I knew it was stupid the second I did it, but you know, if there’s a chance to eat, good sense goes out the window when you’re hungry.”

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While they only managed to recover one package, Schroeder said she didn’t get upset.

“I just had this moment of calm where I realized it’s not about some makeup and a bathing suit,” she shared. “I could tell immediately that he was a good person and just made a bad decision. He didn’t have to walk back with me to where my packages were.”

They shared a hug before parting ways that night, a gesture that Cole said he isn’t used to. He told WTHR he is addicted to drugs and has been living on the streets.

“When we parted ways on Monday night, she hugged me, which is not a normal thing in my world, because I stink,” he said. “I barely get to shower.

“I went to bed with a smile on my face that night. It rekindled my faith in humanity a little bit.”

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Later that week, Schroeder decided to band together with her friends to make Cole’s reality a little bit brighter.

The group all pitched in to buy him a bus ticket to California, where his friends have allowed him to stay in order to get back on his feet.

“Everybody’s just somebody you haven’t met yet,” he said. “She didn’t have to talk to me, but now that she did, there’s a new aspect to both of our lives, and that’s not ever a bad thing, usually.”

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meaghan.wray@globalnews.ca