An RCMP artist sketch made last fall of a downtown thief who brazenly boosted $5,000 worth of gold chains from Ingham's Jewellers has enabled determined Mounties to finally catch their man.
Last week, Innisfail RCMP announced the arrest of a Red Deer man in connection to the mid-day theft at the Main Street business on Oct. 7.
“We did a composite sketch with the owner of the business, and through a member's investigation we were able to identify a suspect. He was located and interviewed and subsequently charged,” said Innisfail RCMP Staff Sgt. Matechuk, adding the investigation and subsequent arrest did not lead to the recovery of the stolen gold chains.
Robert Handy, 25, from Red Deer, has been charged with theft and will appear in Red Deer provincial court later this month.
Matechuk said the suspect, who is in custody, is facing similar and unrelated offences.
Shortly after the incident on Oct. 7, the RCMP released its artist sketch of the suspect, who they described as a Caucasian male, between 20 and 30 years old, about 5 feet 6 inches tall, clean-shaven, wearing a heavy silver chain, blue jeans, white t-shirt, dark jacket and a ball cap.
Garth Ingham, owner of Ingham's Jewellers, said last week he was pleased the RCMP had made an arrest.
The storeowner said he and an employee were present when a man came into the store in the early afternoon of Oct. 7 and began to browse through various items of jewelry.
“He was in here for half or three quarters of an hour. He had looked at quite a bit of product, and wanted to see the gold chains,” said Ingham. “He actually took off his hat, which was good because I got a really good look at him.”
He said the man then tried on one chain and asked if he could order “something” longer.
“We said yes and then he asked if the chains that we had were 14-karat. I said, ‘no, they are 10-karat gold'. At that point he took the whole display and took off out the door,” said Ingham. “We were so shocked that we just kind of stood there for a few seconds.”
Ingham said RCMP were immediately called and arrived at the store within minutes.
“Police were excellent. They were here immediately and started looking in the area,” said the storeowner. “I think he (thief) had somebody waiting, probably. He was gone.”
Four months then went by before Ingham finally received news a suspect was nabbed. And while he's relieved, he also knows he's out at least $5,000 worth of merchandise, which was not insured.
“I'm not likely to get anything back,” he said.
RCMP Staff Sgt. Chris Matechuk
"We did a composite sketch with the owner of the business, and through that a member through an investigation was able to identify a suspect. He was located and interviewed and subsequently charged."
