There is a certain kind of criminal plan that sounds bold in theory but falls apart in the real world the moment something unexpected happens. Most theft schemes depend on a clean exit. You take what you want, you get in the car, and you drive away quickly and quietly. The key word in that sentence is “quietly.” What you generally do not do is crash.
A woman stole a pile of clothing from a downtown Hartford store in broad daylight, reported WFSB, crashed her getaway car down the road, changed into the stolen clothes, and walked away before police arrived. When you read a sentence like that, you almost have to sit with it for a moment. She did not flee the scene in panic. She did not abandon the stolen goods. She took the time, after wrecking a car, to change outfits. That is either a very cool head under pressure or a complete lack of awareness that she was in the middle of committing a crime.
Workers at Track 23, a clothing store at the corner of Talcott and Main streets, said the woman ran out of the store without paying. She drove away and crashed a short distance from the scene. The store is in downtown Hartford, Connecticut, which means this played out on a public street, in the middle of the day, with witnesses.
At some point between the crash and the police arriving, she apparently decided the best course of action was to put on something new and blend into the sidewalk like nothing happened.
Police said the car she was driving was unregistered and had a stolen license plate. So between the stolen merchandise, the crashed car, the stolen plate, and the unregistered vehicle, there are quite a few loose ends here. The change of clothes might be the least of her concerns when all of this eventually catches up with her.
A Plan That Unraveled Quickly
The original scheme, such as it was, appears to have been a straightforward grab-and-go theft. Walk into a store, take what you can carry, get out fast. These types of incidents have become more common at retail locations across the country, and stores deal with them regularly. The problem for this particular woman was that the getaway portion of the plan did not hold up.
Crashing a car that has a stolen plate on it is about the most attention-grabbing thing you can do right after a theft. Police are alerted, the vehicle is sitting at a crash scene, and now there is a car with a stolen plate and no valid registration connected directly to a theft report a short distance away. The clothing change was a creative touch, but it does not erase any of that.
Where Things Stand
As of this writing, no arrest has been publicly reported in connection with the incident. She walked away from the crash scene before police arrived. Whether investigators have since identified her from store surveillance or witness accounts has not been confirmed.
What is confirmed is that Track 23 lost inventory, a car was left wrecked on a public street, and somewhere in downtown Hartford there is a woman wearing clothes she did not pay for. The fact that she had the presence of mind to change into the stolen merchandise after a car accident suggests she is resourceful, even if that resourcefulness is being applied in entirely the wrong direction