Woman Uses Purse for Savings, Loses $10,000 to Burglar : Crime: South Pasadena resident, 84, is carrying the cash when she comes home and surprises thief. She says she adopted the practice after an earlier break-in.

After burglars invaded her house five years ago, an 84-year-old South Pasadena woman tucked most of her assets--$10,000 in cash, $35,000 in U.S. savings bonds--into her big leather purse.

“I thought it would be safer to keep (it) in my purse,” she said.

She rejected the newfangled notion of a checking account. She paid for her groceries, car repairs and other needs in good old-fashioned cash: a thick wad of bills, mostly in $20 denominations.

Last week, when she was out on an errand, a burglar struck again.

But this time, the woman came home in time to confront him--and had her cash-laden purse stolen.

While police search for the thief, the woman--who agreed to be interviewed on condition that she not be identified--lives in terror that he will return to the house where she has lived for more than 50 years.

When she awoke to find an outside light bulb broken Thursday morning, she was sure that it must have been the burglar, coming back for more.

That bothers her more than the money; the bonds are replaceable, she said, and she has other money in the bank.

“I’m going to move,” she said, probably to Las Vegas to be with her sister.

The woman’s ordeal began about 7 p.m. on March 16, when she returned from grocery shopping.

As she turned her kitchen light on, she was confronted by a man who said something to her that she didn’t understand. The burglar had a strange accent, she told police.

The man pounced on her purse and poked her in the chest with a couple of fingers. The woman gave up the purse, according to the police report, and as the burglar fled through the back door, she ran to a neighbor’s house for help.

South Pasadena Detective Richard Luna, who is investigating the case, said few residential burglaries occur in the quiet area where the woman lives.

Police could not find any prior report of a burglary at the woman’s house, but the woman told Luna that her home had been burglarized five years ago and that about $50,000 in U.S. savings bonds had been taken. She said Thursday that she did report the theft to police at the time.

The woman--who has lived alone for five years since the death of her mother--will be reimbursed for the U.S. savings bonds, an official with the U.S. Treasury said. The thief will not be able to cash the bonds unless he has photo identification proving he is the woman.

The thief was described as a black male with an accent, about 5 feet 10 inches tall, 25 to 38 years old, possibly with facial hair. He was wearing a dark-colored jacket and possibly light-colored slacks.

The cash is probably lost forever. Police have no new leads and little to go on.

Will she now switch to a checking account?

“I don’t know,” she said.