SALISBURY — Deputies arrested a 71-year-old Wednesday and charged him with stealing a Salisbury woman’s purse from her vehicle on Aug. 23 while she helped retrieve a neighbor’s dog.
According to the Rowan County Sheriff’s Office, deputies charged James Edward Grubb, 150 Waccamaw Drive, after tracing his brown Nissan pickup to his home. An image of the pickup was captured by a convenience store’s surveillance video when he used Tricia Kelly’s credit card on Aug. 23, the Sheriff’s Office said.
Kelly told authorities in August that she stopped in the 3000 block of Bringle Ferry Road to help a neighbor retrieve her dog. A man pulled up in a brown pickup and appeared to be coming to assist her.
Kelly said a “slim built, older white male wearing a blue T-shirt and blue jeans got out of the vehicle and as he approached her, stopped at her vehicle and took her purse from inside her car,” the report said. After grabbing the purse, the man held it up to indicate that he had her purse before getting back in his truck.
Investigators later found that Kelly’s credit card had been used at a gas station on Long Ferry Road. After obtaining video, authorities found a vehicle that matched the description given by the victim.
Grubb was charged with felony breaking and entering a motor vehicle, misdemeanor larceny from a motor vehicle, felony financial card theft and felony financial card fraud.