Woodbury’s Christmas Tree Caper

Since Sandy Erickson moved to Woodbury last April, she's never had any crime issues in her neighborhood.

That is until the morning of Dec. 3, when Erickson looked out her kitchen window and noticed that things seemed a little different.

Someone had stolen an eight-foot evergreen tree from her yard.

“I thought, ‘What the heck?’” said Erickson, who lives at the 900 block of Moonlight Drive. “I just can not believe it happened.”

A stump is all that remains of the tree, which Erickson had planned to decorate with Christmas lights.

“It was just the perfect tree,” she said.

The incident happened during the overnight hours of Dec. 2-3, and Erickson said drag marks could be seen where the thieves took the tree down a hill behind her home. 

Cmdr. Jay Alberio of the said such crimes are “unusual but not unheard of.”

“It is sad because those trees take a long time to develop,” Alberio said.

Erickson said she understands that plenty of people are without jobs and unable to afford a tree, and she takes some solace in the fact that her old tree will brighten someone’s Christmas.

 Still, “It was just shocking,” she said.

Erickson took the opportunity to teach her two children—ages 5 and 10—about reporting crime. She said they were excited at the thought that officers might come over to investigate.

The family looked along a walking trail behind the home to see if any other evergreen trees had been stolen, but didn’t spot any. (It is illegal to cull trees from city property.)

Luckily, Erickson had only recently taken a picture of a sunset with the tree in it. She said losing the tree is “a bummer.”

“It’s not going to spoil my Christmas mood,” she said.