ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – Tourists from out of state were hoping for a nice vacation. However, the last day they were here in Albuquerque, someone stole from their hotel room.
It’s often heard about trailers taken or cars broken into at hotels. This time, a hotel room rummaged through. “I felt it was a safe place,” said Marjorie Duncan, a caretaker in Colorado for special needs adults.
The folks she takes care of wanted to take a quick vacation. They chose Albuquerque as their destination. “We had a long weekend coming up. We decided we were going to go somewhere within about a 6-to-8-hour drive. We looked at the map and they all wanted to go south,” said Duncan.
They checked into the La Quinta near Iliff and I-40 last week. They enjoyed their time in town where they visited the zoo and aquarium. But before checking out Saturday, the trip took a turn. After breakfast in the lobby, the group went back to their room to find 2 of their wallets stolen.
Duncan says the purses were still there, but the wallets were taken. Everything else in the room was where they left it. When they told hotel workers, they were asked to wait in the lobby. They waited for more than an hour. Duncan mentioned, “At that time I started making phone calls to cancel my bank card.”
The manager told Duncan nothing was found on the security footage and offered her 15% off one of the rooms. The manager also told her robberies like this “never happen” at the hotel. Duncan felt there was no quick action taken by the staff or sense of concern.
Duncan decided to check out and started the road trip back home. She said she filed a police report on the road trip back all while making sure the people she looks after focused on the good parts of the trip.
“I wanted to minimize the anxiety with it. It was hard enough for me to keep it together and not be super angry, but I didn’t want it to impact their experience because they had a really good time,” added Duncan.
Duncan said $600 in cash was stolen from their hotel room and fraudulant charges were made on some of their stolen cards. She said it all adds up to about a $3,000 loss. However, this won’t stop Duncan from providing those she cares for the experiences and opportunities to live life to the fullest.
Duncan filed a police report online and police have contacted her to tell her they received it. She also filed a complaint on the La Quinta website. The hotel told KRQE the security footage runs 24 hours, but they have not provided a statement for yesterday’s incident.