Novelist Lee Goldberg shares video of masked burglars outside his California home
A best-selling crime writer got a chilling taste of his novels when masked men snuck onto his property in the middle of the night Thursday night while he was at his $2.84 million home in Calabasas, California.
Lee Goldberg, 62, author of the critically acclaimed Monk and Diagnosis Murder book series, was alerted to movement on his property by his motion-sensing camera.
Four men wearing matching hoodies, gloves and masks climbed up a steep hill into Goldberg’s backyard under the garish security lights and charged toward his home. alarming recordings posted on his Facebook showed.
“Once again, my fiction comes true,” the best-selling author told The New York Times. “Chilean burglars play a big role in my next Eve Ronin novel, DREAM TOWN. So what happens? Last night they tried to attack my house… **while I was home**.”
Goldberg quickly got his phone and called the police. He recognized the impending danger and realized that the thieves were not a group of petty criminals.
“They looked organized and professional,” said the author KTLA 5.
Before the police arrived, the would-be burglars retreated back down the hill, believing they might have seen him on the phone, and were scared off.
“It’s very disturbing,” he told the outlet. “I write about it, this stuff, and I imagine it, but I don’t think it would happen to me.”
The author of The Heist said the masked intruders “cleaned out” his neighbor’s house before he met the gang of thieves.
According to the outlet, the thieves smashed open a window and searched the home before stealing thousands of dollars worth of clothing and jewelry.
The neighbor said it was the second break-in since he’s owned the property and that he’s considering separating from his home as crime is on the rise in the area.
Goldberg told the outlet that he believes the thieves would gain access to the condominium through a nearby golf course and make their way up the hill to avoid being spotted by security.
“My daughter described this footage as a scene from ‘The Walking Dead’, like zombies squirming into your house. She saw these guys walking faceless down the side of our hill, and she knew they meant us harm,” Goldberg said said ABC7. “She was terrified.”
From 2019 to 2022, there were 1,255 separate property crimes in the city of Calabasas — 271 of which were home burglaries, it said open justice.
244 of these burglaries involved forced entry into the property.
