Police: Shoplifters stuffed groceries in suitcase, but getaway trip cut short

The loot was worth, oh, maybe $375. But it wasn’t so much the dollar amount of the pilfered haul that was remarkable. It was, rather, the quantity of ill-gotten merchandise that a pair of alleged shoplifters recently made off with. What’s more was how they, ever so briefly, made off with it — not to mention the swift police work that landed them in jail. On the afternoon of Nov. 8, the suspects, a 35-year-old man and a 28-year-old woman, were seen at the Save-A-Lot grocery on Eisenhower Parkway in Macon. They were said to be filling a black suitcase with food. The two supposedly packed the bag with two packs of cube steak, two packs of T-bones, four packs of bacon, five containers of sausage and an array of cheeses. Store employees said they then left without paying and took off in a Dodge Neon. But they didn’t go far. They were spotted next just up the road at Academy Sports, where sports bras and six baseball gloves were stolen and where the suspects again got away. But only briefly. A Bibb County sheriff’s deputy noticed their gray Dodge at a gas mart on nearby Mercer University Drive. “In plain view,” a sheriff’s report said, “in the rear of the vehicle was the black suitcase that was used in the theft from Save-A-Lot.” The suspects were taken back to Academy Sports, where an employee ID’d them as the culprits. Later at the Save-A-Lot, an assistant manager did likewise. That’s when the female suspect began yelling that she had paid for the groceries and that there was a receipt in her purse. “The purse was located,” the sheriff’s report said, “and there was no receipt.” The pair were jailed on shoplifting charges.

This story was originally published December 21, 2016 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Police: Shoplifters stuffed groceries in suitcase, but getaway trip cut short."