Burglars ransack 5 VFO stores|[12/11/05]

Published 12:00 am Monday, December 12, 2005

Thieves broke into five stores at Vicksburg Factory Outlets late Friday or early Saturday morning, entering through the ceiling and tunneling through the walls between stores to make off with thousands in cash and merchandise.

The thieves entered through the ceiling of the Reebok store at the north end of the outlet chain, said Vicksburg Police Sgt. Sandra Johnson, then broke through Reebok’s back office walls into neighboring Factory Brand Shoes. From there, they knocked holes in a series of walls to enter Bible Factory, Osh Kosh and Paper Factory stores.

&#8220Cash money is missing, a large quantity of merchandise is missing out of the Reebok,” said Johnson. &#8220Reebok probably has the most missing of any store…it would definitely be in the thousands.”

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Johnson said she was unsure how the thieves entered the ceiling or broke through the walls. Safes were cut at Reebok and Factory Brand Shoes by some kind of tool, Johnson said, but she was uncertain exactly what.

&#8220I would say, based on what we’ve seen, at least two people were involved, maybe more,” Johnson said.

There is no official estimate on the value of the merchandise taken. David DeSalle, assistant manager of the Reebok store, guessed tens of thousand dollars’ worth of shoes and clothes may have been stolen from displays and a back store room, along with about $1,100 from the store’s safe.

&#8220They took all our new shoes…that’s easily $20,000, $30,000, $40,000 in merchandise,” said DeSalle, who spent six years as an officer with the Vicksburg Police Department. &#8220These were brand-new shoes that cost $89 a pop and they took them all.”

Store workers arriving early for the mall’s 10 a.m. opening found their stores ransacked and vandalized. Betty Grant, assistant manager of Bible Factory, said she was tipped off that something was wrong when she arrived around 8:15 a.m. and saw the door to a back room open, a ladder from the Reebok store next door propped up in the storeroom and a light on that she had turned off before leaving.

&#8220I just turned around and called the cops,” said Grant, whose store, she said, was ransacked in places and sported a hole in the wall of the back room but was not robbed of any cash or merchandise.

Johnson said an estimated $3,000 bank deposit was the only thing stolen from Osh Kosh.

At Factory Brand Shoes, assistant manager Diana Humphries said the cash taken from the store’s safe, two bags and deposit totaled well over $2,000.

&#8220They took all the cash, cut our deposit bag, took our deposit, took all the cash out of each bag,” Humphries said. &#8220I don’t know how they carried our safe to the back room to cut it open, but they did.”

Some of the workers said they thought the thieves knew the stores well or had planned extensively for the job because of the time it would take to enter the building, knock holes in the walls, cut open several safes and load the merchandise.

&#8220This had to be well-thought out and well-planned and more than one person,” said Grant. &#8220It’s like they knew exactly where to go to find what they were looking for.”

Humphries said she couldn’t make a call when she discovered the scene at the shoe store.

&#8220Our alarm system is cut,” she said. &#8220Our phone system is cut.”

Reebok store has been the victim of two other unsolved break-ins in the past four months, both by thieves who broke out the glass panes at the bottom of the store front.

The last police patrol before employees arrived in the morning was at 2:30 a.m., Johnson said, but because the thieves came in through the roof, there was no evidence – such as broken glass – of entry from the front or back of the stores.

&#8220You couldn’t see them,” Grant said. &#8220When Cracker Barrel shuts down, it’s dark as death. That’s when they said, ‘Let’s go.’”