NEW CASTLE, Pennsylvania - Two 11-week-old Boston terrier puppies were stolen on Wednesday during an early morning home invasion in New Castle.

Seventy-five-year-old homeowner Irene Matas couldn't hold back the tears, fearful that the people responsible for the crime may sell the puppies to make quick cash.

"To do something that cruel and inhumane. They could have emptied my house out, and I wouldn't care. But to take those two precious little animals, what goes through people's minds?" Matas said.

Matas, a retired Air Force nurse and Bible teacher who has survived breast cancer and who is now undergoing treatment for another form of cancer, has only had the puppies for three weeks. She got them after her dog Patches became ill and had to be put down.

"They mean an awful lot to me. My other pet brought me through the illness that I had," Matas said.

What's frightening about the home invasion is that Matas and her brother were at home at the time; asleep in back bedrooms. The suspects entered the home through the back door, not only taking the puppies, but a 42-inch flat screen TV, the victim's purse and a digital camera.

The home invasion happened sometime between midnight and 6:30 a.m. on Wednesday.

The puppies were stolen from an enclosed playpen in the family room where they slept.

The 75-year-old homeowner is heartbroken and making a plea to the suspects to bring her puppies home.

"Whoever has them, please, please, please return them to me," Matas says. "But if you do have them and for some reason you cannot do this, then please take care of them."

The New Castle woman says she named the puppies Adam and Eve, but they actually respond to the names "Peanuts" and "Sissy." Peanuts, a male Boston terrier weighing only about two and a half pounds has a distinctive black mark on his nose that looks like a tiny dog bone. Sissy, a female Boston terrier weighing just over four pounds is distinctive as well, she has a tiny black mark on her forehead, and she has four white boots, or four white legs, which is said to be unusual for a Boston terrier whose back legs are normally black.

Matas is offering a reward, no questions asked for the return of the puppies.

You can contact Irene Matas or her brother by calling: (724) 658-8855 or (724) 714-8084.