Thanks to alert and diligent sheriff’s deputies patrolling Canyon Country in the wee hours of Friday morning, a break-in robbery at Caruso II Restaurant was apparently disrupted, scaring away thieves who may have left clues in their haste.
“I have to trust the police that they will do the right thing,” restaurant owner Maria Caruso told The Signal Friday after a day of cleaning up.
“It could have been worse,” she said. “The police surprised them by coming here.”
Shortly after 3:30 a.m. Friday, thieves broke the front window of the restaurant on Sierra Highway, just north of Soledad Canyon Road.
Deputies with the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station who interrupted the robbery, phoned Caruso immediately and began gathering clues.
In describing the robbery on Facebook Caruso said deputies told her: “We will send someone out if she is working today to do fingerprints and chances are they used gloves so we might not get anything any ways.”
Caruso said she met with a detective later in the day Friday who took down all the details of the robbery.
The most promising clue, according to Caruso, is finding the suspect’s getaway car at the rear of the restaurant, apparently left in their haste to escape responding deputies.
“They have a lot of evidence in the car,” Caruso said. Also recovered by detectives were the store’s displaced cash register and a sledge hammer believed used to break the window and the back door.
“They broke the window into a million pieces,” she said, adding she spent all of Friday cleaning up, and making repairs to the front window and back door.
“It took a while to get everything cleaned up,” Caruso said, noting the restaurant is open for business.
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