Thieves hit Houston wedding dress shop for second time in 3 months
HOUSTON - More than $50,000 worth of designer wedding gowns were stolen from a Tanglewood boutique overnight, again. Burglars have targeted David Peck’s Boutique on Fountain View and San Felipe for the second time in three months.
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Surveillance cameras from David Peck’s boutique captures a masked burglar pulling up outside the business on Fountainview near San Felipe around 3 AM Monday in a U-Haul truck. The burglar is seen hurling a sledgehammer through the glass window and in less than a minute, walks out with more than $50,000 worth of clothing.
"It seems that whoever came last night knew exactly what they wanted, where it was. They had been in the store or had been told what was in the store and exactly where it was. How they got that information? I don’t know," owner David Peck said.
Most of David Peck’s gowns are custom, hand-made designs with imported fabrics from Europe. Each dress can take up to several weeks to create and retails up to $10,000 each.
Similar to the break-in three months ago in September, the burglar made a beeline for those dresses and luxury silk pajamas on display, skipping over jewelry and handbags inside.
Peck says he's tightened security since the last incident, adding cameras all over, and only had a week’s time frame where one of the store's windows were vulnerable.
"We had done security film on all of our windows, and we had cameras installed. Unfortunately, we had a door switched out for a window and the security film had not been applied to that, and they went exactly for that. They didn’t even test the other windows. So, they knew exactly where to break in," Peck said.
"It's unfortunate to have to go through this," he continued. "We thought we had done everything that we could to prepare ourselves and so that if they did try to break in, they wouldn’t be able to get in. They found the one weakness that we had."
With no updates since the last break-in and just over a week until Christmas to fulfill an influx of orders, Peck feels like he’s running out of options to keep his business safe.
"It does make you think like ‘oh, why are you here? And what are your intentions?’" Peck explained. "I hate to live that way but apparently, we may have to become a little bit more wary."
Police have not released any suspect information in either case so far. Anyone with information is urged to contact Crimestoppers at 713-222-TIPS.