Authorities are searching for a man who stole a pocketbook out of a Salisbury woman’s vehicle while she helped retrieve a neighbor’s dog.
According to a Rowan County Sheriff’s Office press release Wednesday, Tricia Kelly was helping retrieve her neighbor’s dog in the 3000 block of Bringle Ferry Road on Tuesday when a man pulled up and took her pocketbook from her vehicle.
Kelly told deputies, according to the release, she had parked along the road and turned on her emergency flashers to help retrieve the dog.
Kelly reported that a man pulled up in a brown pickup and stopped as if he was going to help. The slim built, older man wearing a blue T-shirt and blue jeans approached her, stopped at the vehicle and took her purse from inside the car.
According to the report, the man held up the purse “to indicate to her that he in fact had her purse and then he got back into the truck and drove toward Salisbury.”
After reporting the incident, deputies found that the woman’s credit card had been used at a gas station on Long Ferry Road.
A video from the store’s surveillance camera shows a man matching the suspect’s description using Kelly’s card. The truck appears to be an older Nissan pickup.
Anyone with information on this person’s identity is asked to call Detective Carl Dangerfield 704-216- 8711 or the Sheriff’s Office Criminal Investigation Department, Lt. Chad Moose at 704-216-8687.