🎥 Hays, Colby incidents highlight difficulty of catching ‘interstate bandits’

By JAMES BELLHays Post

A group of thieves made off with thousands of dollars after a theft at a Hays business last month.

The incident was captured on video by Sue McRae Bickle, owner of Northglen Antiques, 2010 Vine, but even with video evidence, the crime highlights the difficulty in investigating crimes that occur as people get off and quickly back on the interstate.

On the video, three people are captured traveling throughout the store, looking at various items in the early afternoon of Oct. 6.

Shortly after two females enter the store together, one steps behind the counter located near the entrance and looks around before they began walking around the store.

Another man walks in seconds later, looking at the security cameras and texting on his phone while walking around.

At one point while the three people were in the location, a clutch was stolen from a cabinet in the store’s office where there were no cameras.

Cash totaling $1,172 was taken along with two credit cards for the business and Bickle’s personal bank card.

Those cards would be used to make over $5,000 in purchases at Walgreens, Walmart, Home Depot and Dillons in Hays within two hours of the three people leaving the store.

Those purchases were all completed within an hour and were likely used to purchase gift cards, she said, as several of the purchases are for the same amount.

And while in her shop, one of the three people in the video made a purchase with a Visa gift card.

On Oct. 26, the clutch was returned after being found in the bushes of a Hays hotel near I-70 and returned to Bickle, with something extra inside.

In the checkbook, she found two credit cards from a person in Colby.

Colby Police Chief Ron Alexander said those cards were taken during a vehicle burglary reported on Oct. 6, the same day as the theft at Northglen.

“The cards were apparently used in Hays at the Walmart from our theft,” he said, they had also attempted to use the cards in the Walmart in Colby early in the day.

After looking at video from Hays, Alexander said the possible suspects appear to match those from the theft in Colby.

“I imagine this is tied into it,” he said.

The purse stolen in Colby was found two weeks later by KDOT employees near I-70 mile marker 65.

“This is two cases this month where somebody has come from the west and committed a crime and continued on east,” Alexander said. “We think they were likely just passing on down the road and, unless you get them caught with this stuff in hand, it’s hard.”

“We wish you could absolutely solve every crime, but just because you have someone on camera, it’s not always the case,” he said.

Meanwhile, the video and pictures have been pushed out across the state.

“We shared (the video) with local law enforcement and the Kansas Intelligence Association,” said Hays Police Chief Don Scheibler. “It is still an open investigation.”

But cases like these are hard to investigate locally, he said, as the perpetrators are often only in town for a short time.

In this case, Bickle said in around 12 minutes the suspects had the cards from her business, within a couple of hours they had made off with thousands of dollars.

“We definitely feel they came off the interstate and got back on the interstate and are gone,” Scheibler said.

By the time patrol officers had submitted the evidence to a detective, they were likely already out of the area, he said.

“We do tend to have good luck releasing videos and photographs, especially if they are local, but if they are just passing through, pulled off and committed a couple of crimes and got back on the interstate, we are going to struggle,” Scheibler said.

A similar, crime was reported on Oct. 29 in which the department released video, but issued a statement later that they were likely no longer near Hays.

Bickle said shop owners and managers should report suspicious activity, especially when large amounts of gift cards are purchased or crimes like this will continue to occur in Hays, but credit card policies add another layer of difficulty as it is against Visa and Mastercard policy to require identification to make a sale — meaning even a suspicious clerk has little recourse if theft is suspected.

“We have been a vocal advocate for stricter regulations surrounding requiring IDs on credit card purchases,” said Tara Aston, senior manager of national media relations at Walmart. “We are not allowed to require that.”

In Bickle’s case, and the case from later in the month, a vehicle was captured on video that was shared by Walmart, but without a clear license plate number, they are also hard to track.

“Car license plates are major for catching these people,” Bickle said. “The police said my thieves covered their license plates while they were in Walmart and the cameras couldn’t get it.”