Authorities in Florida have recovered four diamond earrings worth nearly $770,000 from a suspected thief two weeks after he stole them from a Tiffany & Co. store in Orlando. The suspect, a Texas man, was arrested on the side of a highway in the Florida Panhandle. Three of the earrings were recovered two days prior to the final one, along with two other unidentified diamond earrings. The stolen earrings matched the serial numbers from the jewelry taken from the store last month.
The suspect had posed as a buyer interested in purchasing the jewelry on behalf of an Orlando Magic basketball player. He then grabbed the jewelry and tried to flee the store. Detectives were able to track him down by obtaining the license plate of his car through security footage at a shopping mall and following his car through tag readers on the Florida Turnpike and Interstate 10. He was eventually pulled over in Washington County, almost 340 miles away, for driving without rear lights.
In the squad car, the suspect was heard saying, “I should have thrown them out the window,” and in jail he asked staff, “Am I going to be charged with what is in my stomach?” He faces charges of robbery with a mask and first-degree grand theft. The recovered jewelry has now been returned to the store, and the suspect remains in custody awaiting trial.
Source
Note: The image is for illustrative purposes only and is not the original image of the presented article.
