Probe By Tarrant County Cops Into Over A Dozen Vacant Home Hijacking Complaints Ongoing As Adverse Possession Rackets Continue Proliferating

In Tarrant County, Texas, the Star Telegram reports:

• Traveling nurse Agnes Edede was shocked in September to find a stranger living in her Mansfield home after she was away at work for three days. The man, Anthony L. Brown, had changed her locks, entered her house without permission and took two TVs and a lawn mower, she told police. Brown told her that the house was now his. To get it back, she'd have to pay him $2,000, police records say.



• Similar seizures may be taking place all over Tarrant County, Mansfield Deputy Constable D. Garnett said. He said his office is investigating more than a dozen similar cases of people claiming ownership of what they say are abandoned homes. "It's an elaborate sham," Garnett said Friday. "These people just go to an empty house, change the locks, put up no-trespassing signs and move in.

For more, see Cases of people claiming squatter's rights in Tarrant County under inquiry.