Lottery kiosk operator appealing for stolen laptop with family photos and business essentials

Heartbroken is how Melanie Willison feels after her business was broken into early Saturday morning.

She runs the lottery kiosk inside the Save on Foods at the Village Green Center.

“I came in and all my cupboards were ripped open, like I had five locked cupboards and they were all pried open, garbage all over the floor,” she said.

Taken from the kiosk was her personal laptop containing sentimental family photos of her two children ages three and 13.

“My son’s full life photos are on there because every time my phone was full I would just put it onto my laptop,“ Willison said.

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“I feel completely violated and I’m heartbroken like I can’t replace those photos. I mean yeah my kids are fine, but you know it’s nice to have memories and photos of fun stuff you’ve done together.”

Excel spreadsheets and other essential business tools were also on the laptop which is described as an older grey-ish black Toshiba model.

The theft resulted in Willison losing an entire day of business.

“I had my employee come to work and I had to send him home because the police had to take fingerprints and they couldn’t get in until the afternoon.”

The Vernon North Okanagan RCMP confirm a break and enter and theft occurred at the Save on Foods at the Village Green Center
at around 3:30 a.m Saturday.

“The suspect targeted the BC Lottery booth and was able to make off with an un-disclosed amount of lottery tickets. The file is still under investigation,” Const. Kelly Brett of the Vernon North Okanagan RCMP said.