SAFFORD – On Sunday around 8:40 pm, an officer responded to a call regarding a woman who was believed to be trespassed from Walmart but was found located inside the store. The officer contacted the woman as she was found pushing a cart with an ice cream cake, a Stanley tool box/set, a sound bar and two packs of D-cell batteries inside of a Walmart bag. In conversation, the woman stated she had been trespassed from the store several years ago but didn’t believe that the trespass order was still valid and thought that it was only good for one year. The officer informed her that was not the case, that she was still trespassed from the store.
The woman reported she was there to exchange the batteries for a different size, claiming they were ones that she had purchased. As another officer spoke with the woman, she later reported she did not have enough money to purchase the batteries and she was planning to steal them. When she was asked if she was there to steal all the items and not just the batteries, the woman stated “no” that a man was supposed to come into the store and pay for them. The woman showed authorities text messages between her and this man, but none of the messages actually stated he was going to pay for the items. He had only asked her to get him a tool box if she could.
When officers went out to the vehicle in the parking lot where the man was waiting, they spoke to him about the situation. The man stated he was not in a relationship nor friends with the woman. The man reported he did not know what the woman went to the store for, and he did not agree to pay for the items she had in the cart. Authorities informed the woman about what the man had stated and that the case was going to be forwarded to the Graham County Attorney for review. The woman was allowed to leave at that point.
When authorities spoke with store employees it was reported the woman had walked past the self check out registers with the items in the cart. When the woman turned and made eye contact with an employee, she then asked if the items by the southern entrance were on sale and then proceeded back into the store until the officer then made contact with her. The total amount of the items in the woman’s cart was $324.56. When the police had spoken with the woman earlier, she had shown them she had what appeared to be less than $40. A couple of days later officers reviewed the camera footage from the store and confirmed the woman had entered the store with nothing in her possession and had an empty cart.
