Police arrested a woman on Thursday night after she entered an occupied home to steal items, then later stole a package from the porch of another home. Officers recovered all of the stolen property and booked the woman into jail.
On Thursday, November 30, 2023, at about 9:36 p.m., our 24-hour dispatch center received a call reporting a residential burglary that had occurred in the 1500 block of Byron Street about 15 minutes earlier. The investigation revealed that at about 9:20 p.m, a family of four (two adults, two children) had been home when the mother, a woman in her forties, heard footsteps downstairs. Assuming it was a family member, she thought nothing of it.
A short time later, though, she and her husband checked their security cameras and saw that an unknown female had entered their home via the unlocked front door. The woman was apparently in their home for two minutes, walking through it to go into their backyard and then leaving out a side yard gate to walk northbound on Byron Street. They noticed that the suspect had stolen the victim’s purse and jacket. Officers checked the area but could not locate the suspect.
At about 10:32 p.m., our 24-hour dispatch center received another call reporting a woman who had just been prowling on the front porch of a home in the 1300 block of Middlefield Road. That reporting party stated the woman was now a couple houses away, doing the same thing.
Officers responded to the area and detained the woman without incident at 10:39 p.m. at the corner of Embarcadero Road and Webster Street. In her possession, they located the stolen purse and jacket, as well as an unopened package that had been stolen off the porch of a home in the 1100 block of Harker Avenue. Officers returned the stolen property.
The suspect identified herself to police using multiple names and dates of birth; police were not able to confirm her identity prior to booking her into the Santa Clara County Main Jail for burglary (a felony) and two misdemeanors: petty theft (for the stolen package) and providing a false identity to police. After fingerprinting, personnel at the jail were able to identify her as 52-year-old Zaira Dier, a person with no permanent residence address. Her booking photo is available at www.cityofpaloalto.org/PAPDnews.
Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call our 24-hour dispatch center at (650) 329-2413. Anonymous tips can be e-mailed to [email protected] or sent via text message or voice mail to (650) 383-8984.
