LITTLE ROCK — Shannon Cardwell and Lindsey Lassiter set out on the morning of March 17 to continue their old tradition: a 6-mile walk on a Saturday.
When they returned to their cars, parked in a gravel lot near the Two Rivers Bridge, their tradition had acquired another wrinkle, according to Cardwell.
Both their cars had broken windows and their purses were gone.
“I was devastated,” Cardwell said. “They took everything ... three checkbooks, all the coordinating documents, my military ID, all my insurance cards, everything.”
Cardwell and Lassiter’s cars were parked in the open in a busy public lot and, according to central Arkansas law enforcement agencies, were just two of many car break-ins investigators think are connected to a pair of women driving a silver Mercedes sport utility vehicle.
Although he couldn’t give a hard number, Little Rock Police Department spokesman Lt. Terry Hastings said through surveillance footage and other evidence, detectives think the two women are behind “several” similar break-ins at similar public areas such as the Big Dam Bridge and Pinnacle Mountain State Park.
“They pick times when there’s a lot of people there,” Hastings said.
The thefts aren’t limited to Little Rock parks, according to Pulaski County sheriff ’s office spokesman Lt. Carl Minden.
Hours after Cardwell and Lassiter’s cars’ were broken into, county investigators were called out to a roadside park near the intersection of Arkansas 10 and Arkansas 113 for two cars that had their windows broken out.
According to deputies’ reports, a woman and her granddaughter’s purses, each containing credit cards and hundreds of dollars in cash, were both gone.
They told deputies they saw a larger silver vehicle pull up to one of the cars, but said they didn’t think anything of it, reports said.
Another woman had her car broken into and her purse, containing money, credit cards and an iPod, stolen. Whoever took her purse, the report said, left the keys to the vehicle, which were inside the purse.
Investigators said that beyond the cash, the two women, who police said might be from Florida, are using one victim’s identification information to cash another victim’s check.
The women have not been identified, Minden said, but according to surveillance footage, appear to be white and in their 30s or 40s.
Minden said the two women in the Mercedes with a Florida license plate might be connected to break-ins throughout multiple jurisdictions both inside and outside of Pulaski County.
“Most [break-ins], there’s someone in your neighborhood and there’s easy access, like someone left a purse or an iPhone on the front seat, it’s a crime of opportunity,” Minden said. But these women are out there looking, it’s almost their full time job.”
Added Minden: “Sophisticated is not a bad word for [their operation].”
Arkansas, Pages 8 on 03/27/2012