THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 8, 1996 TAG: 9608080381
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MEREDITH COHN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: 89 lines
Two sisters suspected of stealing a woman's wallet on Monday stopped in a motel for a Chinese food lunch, courtesy of the victim.
But the women, who have been charged in connection with the theft, had not even finished their egg foo yong when Chesapeake police arrived to arrest them.
Although it was a Chinese-food delivery man who provided the final tip, a bank teller, a grocery store clerk and the victim, Chris Strasshofer, had spent six hours tracking the suspected thieves around town as the pair allegedly tried and failed to cash forged checks.
``You would think the area is transient and unfriendly, but when someone is in trouble everyone steps up to help,'' said Strasshofer, 30, a Chesapeake resident for seven years. ``I'm going to stay here forever.''
The incident began Monday at 10:30 a.m. in the Sam's Club parking lot off Battlefield Boulevard. Two women approached Strasshofer, she said, and while distracting her by pointing to a car with three children inside and asking for gas, managed to slip away with her wallet.
Strasshofer, who has been cautious about her belongings since the sixth grade, when her purse was last stolen, said she knew something was happening.
Although she hadn't yet realized the women had taken her wallet, checkbook, credit cards, identification and spare house keys, Strasshofer said she smelled a scam and followed the women long enough to get their license plate number for police.
When she finally discovered she had been robbed, the thieves were at Central Fidelity National Bank's drive-up window, just up Battlefield Boulevard, trying to cash a check for $175.
Strasshofer went home and found a message on her answering machine from the bank teller, Donna Rigby.
Rigby, Strasshofer said, was suspicious and was trying to validate the check as well as stall for time to call police if the check turned out to be bogus.
Rigby told police and Strasshofer that she knew the check was forged because, among other things, the signature was wrong. Strasshofer had made sure that her signature was nowhere in her wallet.
Rigby used her computer to put a stop on the checking account, and, when she couldn't stall the suspects any longer, also copied down their license plate number.
The women told Rigby that if she wouldn't give them cash, they were heading to Super Fresh food market to use a check for groceries.
Rigby told police she then called Super Fresh to warn them about the bad checks and notified police about her suspicions and where the women were heading.
When the women tried to cash a check at Super Fresh, cashiers there refused, police said, and also noted the direction the women were traveling.
The women reportedly next stopped at the Days Inn on Battlefield Boulevard, where they checked in with one of Strasshofer's credit cards and ordered the lavish Chinese lunch that eventually brought the law to their door.
Unfortunately for them, they ordered from a restaurant near the bank where they had first been refused.
The delivery man from Jade Garden, Kenny Chow, said he was suspicious because the women ordered $61.37 worth of food and paid with a check for $70 dollars.
``I asked for ID,'' Chow said, ``and one woman said the woman who the check belonged to was in the shower. I didn't wait there, but went to the bank to ask if it was good. That was so much for lunch, $61, I was suspicious.''
Strasshofer was at the bank when Chow came in. She told him it was her check, and they called the police, who went to the motel.
Police said they arrested Angel Allen, 24, of Virginia Beach, and her sister Linda Ann Strapte, 35, of Portsmouth.
Allen was taken to the city jail and charged with one count of petty larceny, a misdemeanor, and one count of uttering or passing a fraudulent check, a felony.
Strapte was charged with seven felonies, including three counts of forgery for allegedly signing Strasshofer's name to checks, three counts of uttering and one count of forgery for using a credit card. Strapte also faces three misdemeanors, including one count of petty larceny in the theft of the wallet, one count of using a false ID for placing her picture over Strasshofer's on a license, and one count of defrauding an innkeeper.
``They ordered Chinese food, and that's when it all looped around,'' said Chesapeake police spokeswoman Elizabeth Jones. ``We would have found them, but probably not so fast without the help from these people.''
Strasshofer, who went with police to the Days Inn, said the two women told her they were poor and stole for the three children who were with them.
``I have three children, and I wouldn't use them as an excuse to steal,'' Strasshofer said. ``That's not right. But obviously, from this story, there are more good people here than bad.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo by Steve Earley/The Virginian-Pilot
Chris Strasshofer helped nab two accused of taking her checks.
KEYWORDS: FORGERY UTTERING STOLEN CHECK by CNB