Purse Snatcher Picks Wrong Target for Crime

Описание: HENDERSON COUNTY, N.C. -- Henderson County sheriff's deputies are searching for a man they say snatched the purse out of a shopper's cart.

Sheriff Charles McDonald says the suspect came to the Mills River Food Lion planning to steal. McDonald says the suspect was waiting for an opportunity and had a getaway car ready outside. What only the sheriff knew was that the victim would run after him.

Keep your purse and other valuables on you. That's the lesson to learn, McDonald says.

"I was shaken, but I was more angry," McDonald's wife Jennie said. "I wasn't afraid. He didn't do anything to harm me. I was just angry somebody would do that."

Jennie had her purse in her shopping cart. She turned her back, and seconds later it was gone.

"It reiterates how quickly somebody who's bent on taking something can do it," McDonald said.

Jennie ran after the suspect, chasing him out into the parking lot.

"Yelling stop him! He's got my purse," Jennie recalls.

The suspect got away, but she got his license plate number.

"I'm pretty familiar with the kind of information law enforcement needs," Jennie said.

With the license plate number and picture Jennie's husband, McDonald says deputies identified the suspect.

Deputies have identified the suspect caught on surveillance video as
Corey Leach, 25. On Wednesday afternoon at the Mills River Food Lion,
deputies say Leach grabbed Jennie McDonald's purse while it was in the
shopping cart.

"We gave him no more attention, or no less attention that we would had it happened to any other citizen in the community," said McDonald.

Jennie was shopping alone. Normally, her husband stays in the car.

"I'd love to have been sitting out here in the parking lot, and see her chasing some guy with her purse," McDonald said.

McDonald says people have asked should his wife have ran after the suspect? He says yes, because he says his wife knows she was and was not capable of. He says each person needs to make that decision for themselves.

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