Editor, Manteca Bulletin,

My mother visits the Park View cemetery a couple times a week to visit my brother’s grave who tragically took his life a year ago. As my mom was at the cemetery earlier this week at around 11:30 a.m., a man in a white van pulled up beside her van and knocked out the window and stole my mom’s purse. 

In her purse she had, every card imaginable including her elderly mother’s cards and her severely brain injured daughter’s medical, ID and Social Security cards. Along with the many cards in her purse were text messages and pictures on her phone, of and from my late brother wishing her happy holidays. These are things that she can never get back unless this man is caught. How is it possible that a woman paying her respects at a cemetery gets completely violated by some stranger and get her entire life taken from her within a matter of minutes? This man knew she could not chase him down, this man knew exactly what he was doing to go completely out of his way to follow my dear mother into the back of a cemetery where she is already vulnerable. This needs to be addressed, and this needs to make people aware of what our city and world is coming to. I would really appreciate you looking into my mother’s story and her life. My mom has been through and seen it all and honestly, I don’t know how she even makes it out of bed every morning.

Desiree Dingle

Manteca