INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department is working to track down a thief who stole 200 pairs of ladies underwear from a popular store at The Fashion Mall at Keystone.
Surveillance video taken Monday afternoon at the Gap store shows a male suspect in his 40s slowly walking around the women’s underwear display. The man appears to be scoping out the area, pretending to shop and waiting for other shoppers to clear out of the area.
Once he is alone in the corner of the store, the man can be seen pulling a shopping bag from another store out of his pants pocket. He then proceeds to grab panties by the handful and stuff them into the shopping bag.
“It certainly is unusual and not something that we see often,” said IMPD Sgt. Kendale Adams.
Within seconds of grabbing the panties and stuffing them in the bag, the man walks out of the store with roughly 200 pairs of Gap panties. At $10 per pair, the theft represents a $2,000 loss for the store.
“It defies logic in some sense, and so we’re a little baffled as to the what the intent of this particular suspect is,” Adams said.
Based on the video and the account of a store employee, police know what the man did. They just don’t know why.
“We don’t know if it’s some sick fetish or it’s some type of black market incident that we’re dealing with,” Adams said.
Police in central Indiana have investigated several cases in recent years involving suspects selling stolen merchandise online, or at flea markets, or at community festivals. But they won’t know what the motive in this case until they are able to identify the suspect.
The detective working on the case can’t say for sure, but he is investigating the possibility that this same suspect has committed the same type of theft at other stores.
Investigators are asking anyone with information about the suspect to call Crime Stoppers at (317) 262-TIPS.
