Three charged, accused of stealing 47 phones from Walmart
Three men from Memphis, Tennessee, were arrested and charged over the weekend after they were accused of going to a Walmart in Moberly and stealing 47 iPhones.
Michael O. Strickland Jr., 23, and Christopher T. Davis, 34, allegedly walked in the Walmart on Saturday afternoon and grabbed a shopping cart, according to court documents. They then went into the housewares section a grabbed a laundry basket, then went into the hardware section and grabbed a hammer.
Police watched surveillance footage that showed the two men then enter the electronics section, take the hammer and hit it against a locked glass case below the cash register, court documents said. The two men then began filling the laundry basket with boxes of cell phones.
The two men then left the store and got in a car allegedly driven by Derek L. Benton, 20.
A few hours later, a Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper was involved in a chase in Montgomery County. The car being pursued by the trooper crashed, and the three men in the vehicle began to run away. The trooper found a laundry basket full of iPhones in the back seat of the car.
Strickland, Davis and Benton were later taken into custody and identified as the three men who were accused of stealing the $42,0000 worth of phones from Walmart.
The three men were charged in Randolph County with first-degree burglary, stealing $25,000 or more and first-degree property damage.
