BEDFORD – A Bloomington woman was arrested after an incident on December 15, 2021.
Police arrested 23-year-old Brianna Melvin on a charge of theft and on a warrant for petition to revoke her probation.
According to the probable cause affidavit, on January 4, 2022, Bedford Police officers began their investigation into a theft from Walmart.
According to asset protection associates on December 15, 2021, they received a tip from another manager regarding “suspicious behavior”.
After receiving that report asset protection associates began walking the sales floor and noticed a male and female later identified as Brianna Melvin in the garden center with a cart full of merchandise in bags. The male had a pair of bolt-cutters in his hands while walking through the store.
“Based on this, we continued surveillance and noticed that the two were watching their surroundings very precisely. The two went to apparel, where they selected more merchandise. While in apparel, the two were also looking to see if anyone was following them. After exiting apparel, the unknown female exited the store, via the general merchandise entrance, passing all final points of sale, failing to render payment for any of the merchandise in her cart and or on her person.”
Upon exiting, an assistant manager tried to stop and apprehend her, but she kept on walking outside.
The manager grabbed the cart to prevent Melvin from taking the merchandise and that is when Melvin grabbed a red duffle bag full of merchandise and fled into the parking lot. The male exited the store roughly a minute after.
The female left behind the cart with multiple bags in it that had items concealed in them.
The total amount of the theft was $554.20, pre-tax.
“The duffle bag that the female got away with was packed full of merchandise, which the majority of it was unidentifiable. The total amount of theft based on the identifiable items selected and concealed was $160.31, pre-tax.”
The incident was captured on video surveillance.
The male with her was preliminarily identified as George Goetschius after receiving multiple tips from Facebook. Although the female is the only one who fled the store with stolen merchandise. Goetschius was wanted on a warrant out of Monroe County and had not been located. He was arrested on the warrant on February 18, 2022, and was interviewed at the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department. He identified the woman as Brianna Melvin. He admitted to shopping with Melvin because she was going to purchase gifts for his children. He told police he didn’t know Melvin was going to leave the store without paying for the items.
The information was forwarded to the Lawrence County Prosecutor’s Office and a warrant was issued for Melvin’s arrest on a charge of theft and she was also wanted on a warrant for petition to revoke probation.
