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Sam Penrod reporting 40- thousand dollars worth of expensive clothing ... is in the hands of police, tonight. And two men are sitting in the Utah County jail accused of a wide-spread -shoplifting spree.
Lehi police got involved late last night, when the suspects tried stealing 18-hundred dollars worth of shampoo from this grocery store. And in the end, officers confiscated what turned out to be an unbelievable amount of stolen merchandise.
When employees at this Albertson's noticed three men pushing a shopping cart full of hair care products out of this store, they called police. A Lehi officer stopped their mini-van--
One man was arrested at gunpoint, one fled on foot and was later caught,
the third suspect drove off in the mini-van which was later found abandoned.
He is still at large.
But police recovered the loot left behind.
Sgt. Jeff Swenson, Lehi Police Dept.: "We have 62 leather coats, valued at just over 20 thousand dollars. The shampoo stolen from Albertson was worth $1800. Other misc. clothing was over two thousand dollars, total value here we have 41-thousand dollars we've recovered in stolen property."
Somehow, the suspects crammed all of these stolen goods into this mini van.
All of the merchandise still includes price tags, some leather coats were valued up to 395 dollars, along with designer jeans and other clothing that appear to be from high end department stores.
Police believe the suspect's stole the items-- likely by sneaking the merchandise out of stores.
Sgt. Swenson: "We do have some hangars that indicate Dillards and some bags that indicated Dillards and JC Penney so we've started there, but haven't come up with anything at this point."
Police are asking retail stores in the intermountain region to check their inventory and contact detectives if they are missing similar items.
Both men arrested are from Los Angeles--but police have receipts showing the men were in Idaho earlier in the week.
The mystery now for police is finding the stores where the items were stolen from
Police are still looking for the third suspect--they are getting little help from the other two-- who incidentally say he is to blame for all of the stolen goods.
