It happened in the middle of the night while the homeowners were asleep. Someone came through the garage and burglarized their homes right under their noses, twice in the past three weeks to houses less than a mile from each other in Granger.

“Doing it while people are home makes it more serious,” said Sgt. Bill Redman, a St. Joseph County police spokesman. “People in those neighborhoods need to be aware of that.”

The same person or people could be responsible, Redman said.

The neighborhood is just east of Bittersweet Road and north of the Indiana Toll Road.

Most recently, about 1 a.m. Friday, a man stole the garage opener from a car in the 12300 block of Saddle Court, police said. The burglar swiped two purses, a wallet, an iPod, three cell phones and even carried out a 42-inch plasma TV.

The commotion awoke a woman upstairs, but the person already was gone when police arrived.

And on Feb. 21, a cell phone and wallet were taken from a home in the 12200 block of Timberline Trace North.

The woman who lives in the house told police she woke up on the couch about 3 a.m. and saw a “tall male with a stocking cap” leave the kitchen. She found her husband asleep, and he then called police.

Police said the husband told them he had closed the overhead garage door when he got home but found it open after his wife saw the man in the kitchen.

The cell phone and wallet were taken from a basket in the kitchen.