RICHMOND, Va. — From the Northside of Richmond to the Southside and several places in between, detectives say they are looking for a lottery ticket thief who's been hitting convenience stores hard since mid-December.
The latest lottery ticket theft happened at a gas station off Semmes Avenue. It's the second time at this location in a month on the city's Southside.
"He was walking around the store an grabbed a soda," Cathy Williams recalled. "I had two or three of my regulars in there so I didn't think anything of it. He asked for some scratch offs, but I didn't think anything of it."
Williams was on duty when the man walked in on Jan. 19.
She says he asked for 11 of the $30 scratch off tickets.
As she put them on a till behind the register, she says the man distracted her hearing a commotion. She looked back to see him reaching over the counter.
"I was able to grab two back and ripped off the rest and ran that way," Williams said.
Police say he's done it more than a dozen times since Dec. 20 at various city stores. Both VCU and RPD detectives are working with the Virginia Lottery.
"Every Virginia Lottery ticket is individual and identifiable as a fingerprint. We scan them so we can track there whereabouts, so stealing a lottery ticket may not be a great idea because we can track it,"
Another big clue helping detectives in this case: a memorial sweat shirt the ticket thief is wearing. It's the face of a young man killed in a tragedy in Henrico County late last year as he walked home from work.
Sources close to that victim's family tells Jon Burkett that they are outraged.
"I'm going to keep it PG, but why would you go around stealing from stores wearing a hoodie with your dead relative on it? What is wrong with him? Why would you do that? You're being very disrespectful not only to your family but to friends and everybody else who knew him," Williams said.
There are a few people on Jon Burkett's Crime Insider Facebook page hinting they may know the suspect. Detectives say if you have information to call their anonymous tip line at 804-780-1000 or text a tip using the P3 app.
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