Well this past weekend was an entirely enlivening excursion into the world of crime and early morning Wal-Mart shopping.
My mom, bless her soul, has the droppsies and the forgetsies. In other words she tends to knock things over or drop 'em -- I definitely get that from her -- or leave 'em and forget 'em.
Well last weekend she had gotten up early, borrowed my car (with my permission, of course) and drove to the Galesburg, IL Wal-Mart to do some early AM shopping. Much as she would rather not go there, it's the only place open for shopping so early in the morning.
Well she left with her stuff: some cat litter and ... I don't know what else. One thing I do know is that she did not leave with her purse. Or her $500 left in it. Oh, I should throw in that she did this exact same thing the week before as well. She made a quick u-turn that time and got it back. However this time around when she got back to the spot where she'd been in the parking lot: Voila. No purse. And thus, no $500.
I felt bad the first time but definitely glad to hear she was able to get her moolah. This time around, however ... I felt sick to my stomach when she said "It's gone." Oh, I should add I'd been awake for all of 30 seconds when she broke the news to me.
Ugh. I insisted we drive to Wal-Mart. Again. For the third time for her and first time for me that morning. And look. In the parking lot. In the lost and found (Customer Service area) which ... I wondered if it was even open this early. It was. I talked with the parking lot attendant. No go. No dough.
She had called the police on the way and I'm glad she did. I wasn't awake enough yet to do anything about it. They arrived soon after I'd looked and yakked and fretted. I think she was sorta resigned to have been out the dough. The dough that she needed for the rest of the month.
They took a report as I eyed the parking lot attendant who was walking all over doing his inside stuff. Whatever that was. I knew I shouldn't have suspected him. Anyway. After they took my mom's statement as to what happened, they then dropped a bomb shell of an idea: they would get a hold of the video footage of the parking lot and see if they could pinpoint who dunnit. Brilliant. Why hadn't I thought of that? Oh, that's right ... I wasn't awake yet.
Anyway, to make a long story short ... they got the right section of surveilance. It was odd to see my mom on video loading stuff into the car. They wanted us to see that part so they could be for sure what part of the recording to look at. They then sent us out of the room while they did some more watching. A few minutes later they came out and said they believed they had enough information and would be in touch. So .... we left.
It was around 845 am, I drove us to the Driver's License Bureau. Mom's license was one of things in the purse. I was so glad we got right in there--is there any more stereotyped "long line" than that one! We asked the rep what my mom needed to do to get a duplicate license. We took the information they gave us and headed home to get her social security card and voters card. Those two things could be used to verify her identity and get her a duplicate license.
Fun stuff huh? So we'd been to Wal-Mart twice or thrice, to the Driver's place going on twice and to the bank once (soon to be twice, but that part's boring and so I won't go there). I told my mom "you know that if the police call you it's going to be a non-caller ID call, so you'll have to answer it not knowing who it is for sure." I'm kinda anal about not answering calls if there's no caller id. Well sure enough, as we were headed to the Driver's License office the phone rang. It was the police. Mom's kinda hard of hearing so ... here phone's turned up kinda loud, and I could kinda hear that it was the police and ...
They'd found the person who took her purse! And her wallet and all else inside of it. He was not even a Galesburg resident, but he lives in Henderson, a small town just outside of Galesburg. He is a 74 year old man. The police had tracked him from his license plate (I surmise), and MADE him admit to the theft. Then, the made him go get the purse: he'd hidden it in his trash. Kinda crafty, if you ask me, if a thief is ever smart.
The money was all there. The license was gone. Anyway ....
To wrap this up:
1. We thanked the police on the phone for their awesome help ...
2. We continued our trek to get the duplicate license ... apparently in his quest to separate the purse/money from any identity he threw the license out separately. To me this shows intent on his part.
3. We went to the police station and waited ... and waited ... and waited. And then the policemen who'd taken mom's report came out with the purse -- very dirty from being deep inside a trash can -- and the money.
4. We chatted a bit and left ... end of story. Sorta.
Mom was told she'd be getting a letter from the State's Attorney alerting her to the court date for this thief's trial. She's hesitant to press charges, but it's a no brainer to me. She kinda feels sorry for him ... that someone his age would feel ... would do something like that. Others we talked to that day about this said "he's probably done this thing before" or "he probably hangs around parking lots looking for things people've accidentally left behind." Nonetheless, he took something that did not belong to him and showed intent to keep it since he dumped the drivers license and some other identifying information.
So ... let me know your thoughts on two things:
Should mom press charges? Should she get direct deposit for all her checks rather than carrying around such large amounts of moolah?
Let's just hope the 2nd time is the charm for this base case of forgetsies!
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