Man steals coins, cash

AUSTINTOWN

An unidentified man stole about $8,700 in rare coins and cash from an elderly Kleber Avenue couple Friday evening, after being let into their home under the guise of a utility worker.

The 89-year-old husband had just left the home to get takeout when the man knocked on the back door of the home, according to a township police report. He told the man’s 86-year-old wife he “needed to check the cold water to make sure everything was OK.”

The woman let him in, then went into a bathroom to repeatedly turn a faucet on and off, “until he told her to stop,” the report states. The man soon left after assuring the woman the water was “working fine.”

The couple later discovered cash and a coin collection valued at about $8,000 missing from the home. The woman was unable to describe the man’s appearance.