By Jeff Lehr
jlehr@joplinglobe.com
Joplin police have sent out a warning to law-enforcement agencies in other states regarding a two-woman team that stole an expensive television set from the Wal-Mart store on West Seventh Street, with one of them posing as an employee of the business.
The women got away with a 52-inch, flat-screen Samsung television worth $1,300 on Sunday night, said Cpl. Chuck Niess of the Joplin Police Department.
Niess said a woman dressed as a Wal-Mart employee in tan pants and a blue shirt, with a portable communication device on her belt, entered a back room of the store at 2623 W. Seventh St., and recruited some employees to assist her in loading the television on a cart. The woman then wheeled the TV out to a second woman, who was posing as a customer in a sport utility vehicle in the parking lot.
By the time any true employees of the business became suspicious, both women were gone, Niess said.
The woman posing as an employee was described as having dark brown hair. The other woman was about 5 feet 3 inches tall, with frosted blond hair and wearing a sun dress. She was driving a white SUV with Oklahoma plates that was pulling a U-Haul trailer.
Niess said the Pittsburg (Kan.) Police Department reported suspects matching the descriptions having pulled off a similar theft at the Wal-Mart store in Pittsburg.
