LPD Looking for Criminal Linked to High-Dollar Thefts at Two Stores

By: Chad Silber - Email

Updated: Fri 6:44 PM, Nov 16, 2012

Lincoln Police are looking for a bold criminal who was able to steal hundreds of dollars of merchandise from two local stores.

By the time a Sears employee found out their keys were missing, the culprit was already long gone.

"Those keys happen to be keys that can get you into display cases to take off security devices from different electronics," said LPD Officer Erin Spilker.

It happened on October 12th at 11am. Later, store staff noticed a man wearing a skull cap on video surveillance and soon learned his target.

"They were able to see the male go into the display cases, take out a Sony camcorder, remove the electronic monitoring device that's on the camera and then leave the store without paying for it," said Spilker.

But he wasn't done there. Lincoln Police say at 2am the next day, he was spotted on surveillance at Walmart on North 27th Street.

"Employees of Walmart noticed that the fire exit door was open, which was obviously suspicious," said Spilker. "This isn't a door that's normally kept open."

Security video showed two men taking several expensive items off store shelves and out the fire exit; car stereos, a hunting scope and even a car sub woofer. Watching the video was like deja vu to Lincoln Police.

"They're a perfect match with one another and you can see from the photos that he's even wearing the exact same thing in both videos," said Spilker.

Police warn this is a dangerous type of criminal.

"People who are willing to commit two crimes such as this, back to back and obviously high risk situations, going up and actually stealing keys from an employee and then going out a fire exit with very high dollar items, you don't know what they're going to be willing to do next," said Spilker.

If you know anything about this case, call Crimestoppers at 475-3600. You could be eligible for a $1,000 cash reward.

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