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Strangers help woman after sentimental package stolen from her front porch

PITTSBURGH — A woman in the Mexican War Streets neighborhood was heartbroken to learn a package with a sentimental and irreplaceable object inside was stolen from her home.

Chelsea Cernigliaro, who is seven months pregnant, was looking forward to receiving a package from her mom.

"It was a baby blanket my mom had made for me out of my old baby blankets," Cernigliaro said.

But when she came home after work, the package wasn't there. She quickly learned what happened to it.

When Cernigliaro checked out surveillance video and saw a man swiping a package from her front porch, she immediately started walking along Sampsonia Street and checked out trash bags, but she didn't find it.

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She kept walking on the streets, until to her surprise, she ran into the man who took her package.

"I snagged a picture of him up close and was able to post the picture on our neighborhood Facebook page," Cernigliaro said.

That's where Ashley Smith saw the Facebook post and decided to help.

"I'm going to hit the streets. Started by looking around through all the dumpsters in the area," Smith said.

And while she was digging through the trash, she went up to a man nearby.

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"I said 'Hi I have a crazy question,' I asked, 'Do you know the guy in this picture.? And he said, 'I have seen him around,'" Smith said.

"And I knew where I could find him. And I knew I wasn't gonna let Ashley go without," Charles Thompson, the man nearby, said.

Thompson told Channel 11 he eventually found the blanket off of Federal Street.

"I just wanted her to smile. I just wanted her and Chelsea to smile. I just wanted them to know it ain't that bad over here," Thompson said.

Cernigliaro said she filed a police report and believes the man in her video is responsible for taking packages from other homes in the area.