The two dogs wouldn’t stop barking.

On a chilly night in February, Yumiko Suzuki was alone in her home in a leafy Seattle suburb studded with parks, evergreen trees and “children at play” signs. The wife of retired Mariners great Ichiro, Yumiko heard their dogs barking and checked a live security camera feed. There, she saw that a window on a kitchen door had been shattered, and the door was open.

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Suzuki tried to phone for help, but the calls didn’t go through. She heard noise outside the primary bedroom. She locked herself in the room. A tall man wearing a hooded sweatshirt, headlamp and black gloves repeatedly tried to open the door. It didn’t budge. He pummeled the door with kicks. The jamb broke. So did the handle. Suzuki threw her weight against the door.

The masked intruder reached through a gap in the door and doused Suzuki’s face and chest with pepper spray. She shoved a security bar into place on the door, screamed “Call the police!” and pressed a panic button for the home’s alarm system.

The intruder eventually fled through the home’s front door with a stolen Louis Vuitton satchel, backpack and purse. He jumped a gate and escaped in a Jeep Grand Cherokee as Issaquah police officers raced to the scene.

The terror that unfolded that night wasn’t an isolated incident, but part of a three-month burglary spree where a loosely connected crew targeted some of the Seattle area’s best-known current and former athletes. They struck Mariners pitcher Luis Castillo’s home twice, burglarized Suzuki, Dodgers pitcher Blake Snell, former Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman and a home shared by Mariners center fielder Julio Rodriguez and Reign FC forward Jordyn Huitema.

The crew cased potential targets. They kicked down doors and crashed through windows. They wielded a frequency jammer to disrupt security systems. They carried pepper spray and, on at least one occasion, a pistol that appeared to have been modified for fully automatic fire. They didn’t seem to care if anyone was home. In all, they made off with more than $700,000 in luxury watches, jewelry and designer leather goods from the six athlete burglaries.

The effort to stop the crew sprawled across nine jurisdictions. The FBI also contributed, and Sherman provided a crucial tip.