By Lyonel Doherty
A little sleuthing by an Oliver RCMP officer resulted in a lady getting her purse back after it was stolen from Subway recently.
Employee Lane Busby said a female customer and her husband from Osoyoos came into the restaurant and ordered lunch.
After eating, the lady apparently forgot her purse that was hanging on the back of the chair.
Busby said the customer called five minutes later to ask if her purse was still there. It wasn’t.
“We looked around, but we couldn’t find it,” Busby said, remembering there were two other male customers sitting in the back when the couple was having lunch.
“One of them left quickly,” Busby recalled.
The couple came back to the restaurant and the RCMP was called.
Busby wandered around town looking for the purse and checked all the garbage cans in the vicinity.
Coincidentally, one of the men who had been sitting in the back returned to the restaurant and began helping in the search. Busby said the man identified the suspect, and Facebook was used to find the individual’s profile.
Corporal Christina Tarasoff from the Oliver RCMP said Cst. Martindale was the investigating officer who obtained some details about the incident and began searching for the purse.
“That afternoon a local resident turned the purse in to the Oliver detachment after locating it on a local walking trail,” Tarasoff said. “Cst. Martindale immediately recognized the purse as the one stolen earlier in the day and returned it to the rightful owner.”
Busby said this is the first time he’s been involved in a theft investigation, giving credit to the “power of Facebook.”
There was no report of any arrests or charges.
