Two Pine Bluff women were arrested Wednesday after allegedly stealing almost $3,000 worth of merchandise from Hot Springs Mall and fleeing in a vehicle.
Brittney Nicole Nelson, 33, and Danyelle Migon Robinson, 31, who both list Pine Bluff addresses, were taken into custody shortly before 1:30 p.m. and each charged with a felony count of theft of property more than $1,000, punishable by up to six years in prison.
They were both later released on $2,500 bond and are set to appear Oct. 2 in Garland County District Court.
According to the probable cause affidavit, shortly before 1 p.m. Wednesday, Hot Springs police Officer Richard Davis responded to Sears, 4501 Central Ave., regarding a theft that had just occurred and while en route he was told the two female suspects had fled the scene in a blue Pontiac SUV.
Davis spotted the vehicle, occupied by two women, northbound on Central and stopped it on the King Expressway at the Carpenter Dam exit. The loss prevention manager for Sears came to the scene and reportedly identified the two women, identified as Nelson and Robinson, in the vehicle as the ones who had stolen from the store.
She said she saw both women on camera take two purses from the store and conceal numerous items of jewelry inside them. They also had two empty plastic JCPenney bags they started to use to conceal miscellaneous clothing items. She said the women continued to conceal items in the bags and then walked toward the Sears exit.
She said she confronted them in the parking lot and identified herself as the loss prevention manager and both women "took off running toward the main part of the mall dropping items along the way." She said she chased them and caught up to them as they were dumping the purses full of jewelry into a trash can outside the store.
The two women then ran to the blue Pontiac and fled the area. The affidavit notes the total value of the items taken from Sears was approximately $2,709 and about $505 worth of the jewelry items were "damaged and unsalable."
Local on 09/21/2018