About the security alarm. I called a friend of mine who has a system in her house. She told me that the panel will flash a "red light" indicating which door on her system is open. It will set off no ALARM if the system has not been SET. It's simply a built-in warning light to show which door or windows are open before the alarm is secured. After she punches in the system, any entry would set off the alarm in her home and to the monitoring system, in which case, they call her home before calling the police.
We are taking Damon Van Dam's word that he actually saw the red light on...which in my opinion, was probably on most of the time if they let the dog in and out and wasn't secured for the evening yet. So he didn't check on the children in the house, because it was no big deal for this to take place.
So maybe, no one broke into the house...no sign of forced entry, was there?
sw