Normally a community would be thankful for a local law enforcement officer taking a keen interest in its trials and tribulations.
That’s probably not the case with one now former sheriff’s deputy from Jefferson, Wisconsin, who kept a watchful eye on published obituaries only to express her condolences in peculiar fashion.
Janelle Gericke, 29, of Jefferson, Wisconsin, served as a corrections officer in the Jefferson County Jail from February 2016 until being fired this June.
She may now have to get used to life on the other side of the bars after developing a decidedly unusual reading habit.
Gericke allegedly broke into the homes of relatives attending funerals that had been advertized in published obituaries, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
She currently faces just a single count of burglary following an incident in February, when a family returned from a relative’s visitation to find her in their kitchen.
Gericke told the family she had been hired through Facebook to do the cleaning, and complied with their request to leave, according to the criminal complaint.
However, she is also reportedly linked with at least six other break-ins or attempted break-ins in 2018 and 2019, including several incidents which took place at the houses of people listed as relatives in online obituaries while they were away for the funeral service.
In one incident in February 2018, a doorbell camera caught Gericke entering and exiting a home. Its owner later returned from a funeral to find a checkbook was missing.
Gericke had left a note claiming she’d been there to collect items purchased via Facebook Marketplace. A print later pulled from the note matched Gericke, the complaint states.
Following a months-long investigation, police set up surveillance in June at the homes of relatives attending funerals detailed in published obituaries. They allegedly saw Gericke trying to break into two of the homes.
Charges against Gericke were only filed on Tuesday, for reasons that are unclear. She is set to make her initial court appearance in Jefferson on December 30.
 | Jefferson, Wisconsin |
|---|---|
| Location: | 45 miles west of Milwaukee, at the confluence of the Rock and Crawfish rivers |
| Population: | 8,034 |
| Median Household Income: | $51,071 |
| Quirky Fact: | During World War Two, Jefferson was home to Camp Jefferson, a prison camp for German POWs. |