Police: Suspect arrested after paying waitress with her stolen card

PINE BLUFF, Ark. (KATV) — A Pine Bluff thief who stole a woman's purse at a gas station was arrested two days later when he used one of her stolen cards at a restaurant where she was waitressing.

On Sunday, Flora Lunsford parked at a gas station at the intersection of Dollarway and Hutchinson in Pine Bluff and went in the store. While she was inside, a man broke into her vehicle and stole her purse.

Surveillance video showed Lunsford pull up to the store while the suspect was also at the pumps. When she goes inside, this suspect goes to her vehicle, steals her purse and gets back in his car without paying for gas. Police say he drives to the side of the store, where another man who shoplifted a drink from the gas station gets in the car and they drive away.

On Tuesday, Lunsford was working as a waitress at a local business two blocks from where the theft occurred and a man she was serving handed over a card to pay for his meal. When Lunsford went to ring it up, she looked at the card and saw her own name. Instead of swiping the card, she called police.

The suspect, 21-year-old Shamon West, was put in handcuffs and was also found with Lunsford's driver's license, social security card and her other credit cards.

"As a side note, the driver’s license, as all do, had her picture on it," the police department said. "Therefore, you would think he should have known what she looked like. Yet, he still handed her own credit card to her."

West was booked into the Jefferson County jail for forgery, theft by receiving, and three outstanding warrants.