Christmas Crook Steals from Wheelchair-Bound Woman

Each day, Carolyn Giguere pushes her wheelchair-bound daughter Laurene out the door and gets her ready for daycare.  Laurene suffers from cerebral palsy and counts on her mother to get her from place to place.  Maneuvering down the icy walkway is no easy task.

“Back in November, we ordered this HeatTrak mat that melts the snow and ice because getting the wheelchair down there every morning to the bus because she goes to daycare, it’s icy.  That sleet, the least bit of water on it and it’s a sheet of ice,” said Carolyn Giguere.

The mat was working beautifully until someone decided to take it!  The $995 mat was stolen from right outside their front door, during the few hours the Gigueres were out of the house.  

“I was so happy with it, and now I’m so disappointed without it.  Maybe somebody out there will see it or know somebody that has one that didn’t have one before, or a pawn shop,” said Giguere.

Thomaston Police detectives are looking into the theft and are looking into people in the area, whom may have known the mat was there.

“It’s kind of heartbreaking.  These people work hard for these things, and especially now with the times; people don’t have a lot of extra money to throw around.  So when they save up or get enough money to purchase something like this, it’s heartbreaking,” said Detective Sgt. Jim Campbell.

Carolyn is just hoping someone will return the mat to make it a little easier for her and her daughter to get down the walkway. 

“It’s more difficult because the small wheels on the chair get stuck in the stone, and that mat just made it a nice clear path, so it was really nice,” said Giguere.

Thomaston Police ask anyone with information on the stolen mat to contact the Thomaston Police Department.

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