Reading about the home invasions made me think of putting up a few obvious webcams and a few hidden ones outside and inside, maybe even with a small sign informing of continuous logging to remote storage. I've been thinking about doing something like that anyway, 'cause I've had a few UPS parcels stolen off my porch.
I am not sure that intruders in a state like the one the author is living in would care. Seems like the police is not very much on top of things there, so provided with the footage of your rape and murder, they might just not care.