10 Horrific Cases of Shoplifting



1. A 35-YEAR-OLD Perth woman was charged for running down a shopping centre security officer with her car when she was stopped for shoplifting. 

 Police said the woman, from the northern suburb of Balga, was confronted by two loss-prevention officers outside a supermarket in Butler. They challenged her over food and cosmetics they believed she had stolen.

The woman then allegedly sprayed deodorant in the face of a male officer, jumped into her hatchback and drove towards the female officer, but hit a metal pole.

Police said two other adults and two 11-year-old children were also in the car.

They said the accused then reversed her vehicle and again drove at the female officer, striking her.
The officer was trapped under the front of the car as it reversed.

The male officer pulled the woman from the car and they struggled. Police arrived and arrested her.link 

2.Michael Pollara, Florida Man Accused Of Shoplifting $2 Million, Lived With 'Cat Family'

 The investigation began when nearly $900 of Lego sets vanished midday from the Toys R Us store in Boynton Beach. 

Before it was over, authorities would be tailing the alleged mastermind believed to have stolen more than $2 million of toys from Toys R Us stores from Maine to California.

The suspect: a 47-year-old, globe-trotting Tamarac man who lives with his mother and his nine cats -- what he calls his "cat family." Broward sheriff's detectives say he accomplished his personal goal of stealing in all 50 states.

His name is Ignatius "Michael" Pollara, and he's suspected of being one of South Florida's most prolific shoplifters. His criminal case is one that leaves even veteran law enforcement officers shaking their heads in disbelief.

In a span of about 200 days, reward cards linked to him were handed to cashiers at 139 Toys R Us stores in 27 states, according to court records. There was one two-week stretch when the cards were used up the East Coast from Palm Beach Gardens to Bangor, Maine, and then back down to Virginia -- 23 stores in 11 states.

A day before his arrest, Broward sheriff's detectives watched him and an admitted accomplice visit 21 stores in central Florida in less than 24 hours, according to court records. They said they found the bounty from that spree when they searched Pollara's cluttered home strewn with boxes and bags.link

 3.A SHOPLIFTER had a £20,000 crown court trial over claims a stolen joint of beef reminded him of his dead grandmother.

 John Casey was caught on Asda’s shop camera hiding a £12 roast in a rucksack at the Washington Galleries store last October and arrested for theft.

But the 51-year-old denied he was being dishonest and said he had moved the meat out of sight as it was giving him “flashbacks” about his grandma, who died of a blood clot when he was a child.

Casey, of Lumley Close, Oxclose, Washington, was tried over two days by a jury at Newcastle Crown Court.

The unemployed dad-of-eight denied the theft charge throughout.

The estimated cost per day of a trial per day is £10,000 and the case was heard before John Milford QC, one of the north’s top judges.

After just over an hour deliberation Casey, who has never shoplifted in the past but has other convictions, was found guilty.link

4.Fetus Found In Bag of Teen Shoplifter at Manhattan Area Victoria’s Secret

 It starts like any episode of Gossip Girl: two high school girls in a New York City Victoria’s Secret looking for some lingerie to pilfer. Then it becomes a sad horrific mess and you’re weeping for society.

A security guard at the Herald Square store had been alerted of possible teen shoplifters. When he encountered the girls, he stopped and searched them, according to the Associated Press. That’s when he found a fetus.

The 17-year-old girls were shopping at a Victoria’s Secret store in midtown Manhattan, said police, who were called to the scene after a guard noticed a strong odor coming from one of the bags and found the fetus. One of the girls told detectives she was carrying the human remains because she had delivered a day earlier and didn’t know what to do, authorities said. It wasn’t clear whether the fetus was alive or dead when delivered.link

5.Shoplifters robbed while stealing from grocery store

 Two accused shoplifters got a taste of their own medicine when they sought to clear out of the crime--and found that a passing malefactor had broken into their own car.

Security personnel were in the process of questioning Korin Vanhouten, 47, and Eldon Alexander, 36, at an Ogden, Utah WinCo supermarket, accused of stealing makeup, energy bars and batteries. At the end of the interrogation, they left with a citation for attempted shoplifting.

However, they soon stumbled on to the scene of a successful carlifting, with the awkward discovery that while they were in the WinCo, someone--or several someones--had broken into their car.

And as it turned out, the ironies were just starting to multiply. For Vanhouten and Alexander proceeded to report the ransacking of their vehicle to the same officer who had issued them their shoplifting citation.link

6. Shoplifter hung herself with police car seatbelt

  A gaggle of groids apetended a vigil  for a teenager that has been in a coma since she was arrested  for shoplifting.

 8-year-old Tanisha Williams was pawcuffed in the back of a patrol car when police said she hung herself with the seat belt.  Her fambly has ooked to NewsChannel 36 it does not believe the story.

Several Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police officers approached the fambly and its apetorney as the vigil finished. Those officers offered to allow the fambly to view the in-car video taken the night Williams was arrested outside Citi Trends on Freedom Drive.link

7. Shoplifters Caught With $20K in Cosmetics

 Police say they caught a pair of women shoplifting at a JC Penney this week in the suburbs of Washington, DC. No big deal, except the women had allegedly stuffed $20,000 in stolen beauty products into their shopping bags and car trunks, the Washington Post reports.

 Police accuse Darquesha Wilkinson, 19, and Latasha Mungo, 24, of stealing high-end lotions, makeup, and perfume in an ongoing scheme to resell the products at cheaper prices. link

8. Woman Shot Dead For Shoplifting At Walmart


Shelly Frey, 27, was shot and killed by an off-duty sheriff’s deputy at a Houston, TX., Walmart. The deputy was suspicious of Frey, saying he thought she was stealing from the store, reports UK Daily Mail.

Harris County Sheriff’s deputies said that Shelly Frey, Tisa Andrews and Yolanda Craig were shoplifting when they were stopped by Louis Campbell, a 26-year veteran of the force, who is employed as a security guard at Walmart.

Campbell said that the women dashed to their car, and when he went to open their car door, they drove away. Campbell then thought it was his duty to stop the perpetrators so he fired the deadly shot into the car which hit Frey in the neck.Link

9. Grandma Used 11-Year-Old Granddaughter To Shoplift


A grandmother is in jail in Atlanta accused of using her granddaughter to help her shoplift.
Police said Howard used her granddaughter to help her steal $139 worth of merchandise.

 Morrow police said she concealed the stolen goods in a baby bag, which was all caught on tape.

“That’s absolutely horrific. You don’t do that,” shopper Vickie Harris told Jones.

The allegations floored Harris and her daughter who were shopping at the Walmart. Harris said no adult should have their loved ones participating in crime.

“It sets a bad example. You can’t really get mad if they do it,” she said.
Howard told the judge in court she is unemployed.link

10. Mother of Boston bombing suspects arrested  for 'stealing $1,600 worth of clothes from Lord & Taylor'


The mother of the two Chechnyan brothers suspected of setting off two bombs at the Boston Marathon was arrested last year for allegedly stealing $1,600 worth of clothes from an upscale department store.

Zubeidat K. Tsarnaeva, 45, was charged with two counts of malicious/wanton damage and defacement to property after allegedly swiping the merchandise from a Lord & Taylor in Natick, Mass. in June 2012.

She also spoke today to proclaim that her son's didn't plant the bombs and that they are ''100 per cent innocent.' link