This reminds me of the story of an elderly lady in a small town who was often found wandering around at night. She had lost her husband a few years prior (after over 50 years of marriage). The neighbors or police would make sure she was okay and take her home. She seemed completely harmless. On some very, very early mornings, she would take the neighbors coffee and cookies and visit with them a while. After she had left and at a more reasonable hour they would return the coffee pot and plates, she would scream and rant at them for 'stealing' her coffee pot and that she had been looking for it for hours! When anybody visited her in her home, she mostly seemed okay, maybe just a bit forgetful or confused at times, but for short visits, nothing unusual for an elderly person. Finally the police decided to call the family after almost setting her home on fire by accident and said she couldn't live alone anymore--her 'incidents' finally started coming out.
The catch is, nobody in the family knew the extent of her issues because they didn't live nearby and no one told them about her night time trips or police calls (they always took care of her, took her home, etc.) To make a long story short, she ended up diagnosed with Alzheimers dementia. It was after her diagnosis that many more of her escapades were told to the family--her neighbors and friends (who abandoned her because of her odd behavior), brought forth the information and how it all made sense to them now (think many, many odd stories about her)--it was the dementia. The place where she was evaluated informed the family that on some days she was perfectly coherent and normal, yet other days her behavior would be quite 'erratic'. Turns out, she was not perfectly harmless, she did have violent/dangerous episodes once in a while.) Had somebody officially filed a report or talked with the family, she could have diagnosed much sooner. Thank heavens she was finally 'caught', before something tragic happened.
My point is, maybe the police or her family do need to be contacted for her safety. They may not know the full extent of her escapades. What if the next person she tries to steal a goose, etc. from doesn't give a warning? What if she doesn't even remember you gave her a warning and tries it again? I am not condoning her behavior by any means, but she may need help and especially in small towns, sometimes it takes several calls before something is finally done to really help her--medical evaluations, roommate, etc. Wouldn't you want to know if someone in your family was having these issues?
