Palo Alto police have arrested a woman who they said burglarized an occupied home in the University South neighborhood on Thursday evening and then stole a package from another home a few blocks away.

The burglary occurred at about 9:20 p.m. on Nov. 30 on the 1500 block of Byron Street, near Rinconada Park, according to a police news release. The residents of the home, two adults and two children, were all at home when the mother, a woman in her 40s, heard footsteps downstairs and assumed it was another family member walking around.

While she initially thought nothing of it, a short while later she and her husband checked their security camera and saw a woman whom they don’t know enter their home through the front door, which was unlocked, walking through the house to get to the backyard and then leaving out of the side yard, according to the police.

The home occupants noticed that the woman stole the woman’s purse and jacket. They called the police about 15 minutes after the incursion but officers could not locate the woman, the news release states.

An hour after the call, however, police received another call about a woman who was reportedly prowling on the front porch of a home on the 1300 block of Middlefield Road. The caller said the woman was now a few houses away, doing the same thing. Police arrived a few minutes later and detained the woman at the corner of Embarcadero Road and Webster Street.

Police said she had the purse and jacket from the Byron Street home in her possession, as well as an unopened package that they said had been stolen from a home on the 1100 block of Harker Avenue. Officers returned the stolen property, according to the news release.

The woman identified herself using multiple names and dates of birth, according to the news release. But after fingerprinting her, police were able to identify the woman, who is 52 and has no permanent address, according to the news release. She was booked into the Santa Clara County Main Jail for burglary, a felony, and two misdemeanors, petty theft and providing a false identity to the police.

Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call the department’s 24-hour dispatch center at (650) 329-2413 or send anonymous tips to paloalto@tipnow.org or (650) 383-8984.

Editor's Note: Palo Alto Online's policy is to withhold the names of those arrested for most crimes until the District Attorney has determined there is sufficient evidence to file charges in the case. See our guidelines here.