Corrie Smith said her husband believed their 2007 Silverado Crewcab truck had been shot when he noticed a small hole under the driver’s side door handle on Oct. 17. After looking closer, he realized the puncture was not a bullet hole but had been made with some type of tool. The incident happened while the Smiths left their car in the parking lot of the Carroll County Recreation Center for an hour while they watched their daughter’s cheerleading team perform from 11 a.m. to noon.

Smith said she and her husband checked the inside of the car and nothing was missing so they told police someone had attempted to break into the vehicle. On Sunday, however, Smith said she opened her wallet and found that her driver’s license, Social Security card and two credit cards were missing.

“I never even thought to look in my purse because it was exactly where I had left it,” Smith said.

Smith was one of five reported break-in victims that day and just two weeks earlier on Oct. 3, police received seven reports of the same type of incident.

Another woman, Rachel Dobson, said she didn’t notice the hole under her door handle until officers pointed it out to her.

“A friend told me where it would be and I looked everywhere,” Dobson said. “Everything in my car still works. The alarm still works, the automatic door locks still work. I would not have noticed someone had broken in if I didn’t try to use a credit card that day.”

Similar to Smith’s situation, Dobson’s belongings appeared to be untouched, including expensive camera equipment she had left out on the seat. When Dobson looked in her wallet, however, her credit cards and license were gone.

“They even took my Kroger card and put it where my license had been,” Dobson said. “It was like they didn’t want me to notice. Luckily I was able to shut all my cards down before they could use them.”

After getting the case, Investigator Stephen Stollar discovered that Carrollton city police and Villa Rica police had been investigating break-ins involving the same technique since May.

During the course of his earlier investigation, Carrollton Detective Blake Hitchcock obtained video footage of two men and one woman using a stolen credit card from a car break-in.

Stollar also tracked down similar footage of a man and a woman using one of the credit cards from the recent Recreation Center break-ins.

“We have been getting consistent video of the same two black males and black female who we believe are involved,” Capt. Shane Taylor said.

Police are still trying to determine the identities of the people in the videos. They are also unsure as to whether or not they are local residents.

Taylor recommended that citizens remove anything valuable from view after parking and locking their cars.

“All of the victims had something in view,” Taylor said. “I had heard about this method before but we hadn’t had any problems with it until now.”