Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Target habit leads police to suspect

A woman accused of snatching purses is arrested at Clearwater Mall. Police say shopping within an hour afterward is part of her M.O.

By JACOB H. FRIES
Published May 6, 2006

CLEARWATER - As mourners waited for the funeral to begin Friday morning, Karen Lang closed in, police said.

This is what followed, they said:

Lang, 43, struck up a casual conversation with Edith Harpster, 87, who was sitting outside Bethel Lutheran Church on McMullen-Booth Road about 10:30 a.m.

Lang leaned close to Harpster, whose eyesight is failing, and talked about the church. Moments later, Lang sped away, Harpster's purse at her side.

It was Lang's latest haul in a string of purse thefts at churches across Pinellas County, and it was her last, police Sgt. Greg Stewart said. Within an hour of stealing Harpster's purse, police found her at Clearwater Mall trying to buy $211 in groceries at Target.

"Whatever is driving her, we don't know," Stewart said. "Bottom line, she's a criminal."

Once in custody, Lang confessed to the 17 purse snatchings that police knew about and others that they didn't, Stewart said. Lang said she targeted churches "because there are nice people at church," Stewart said.

"(Lang) is evidently a somewhat religious person and attended church previously," Stewart said.

Police said Lang has arrest warrants in Bay County and in Georgia, where she was most recently living. Investigators think she came to Pinellas several weeks ago and lived in an efficiency apartment at Amberlee Hotel in Dunedin.

Lang brought with her a 9-year-old daughter, whose name was not released.

Lang told detectives that her daughter had no idea how she was making money, Stewart said. Lang said she tried to steal during the morning hours, when her daughter was still sleeping.

The child was put in protective custody awaiting placement with relatives.

Typically, police said, this is how Lang worked:

She walked into a church's day care center and asked for a tour, saying she was interested in enrolling her child there. She looked for unattended wallets and purses, then created a distraction by asking for water or to use a telephone.

Within an hour of leaving, she generally went to a CVS or Target store to use the stolen credit cards.

It was that habit of shopping at Target that prompted police to look for Lang's car at the Clearwater Mall location, Stewart said.

Sgt. Wilton Lee heard over the radio the report of Harpster's lost purse. Lee suspected that it might be connected with the previous incidents, so he phoned detectives for more details about their case.

They said the woman drove a faded maroon Ford Escort and that she used the credit cards within the first hour. Lee drove through the Target parking lot in an unmarked cruiser and found nothing.

Then he drove to the south side of the building, where there is a small parking area, and saw the car. He parked about 100 feet away and checked the car's license tag. It came back to a different vehicle, so he waited until the owner came out.

Lee followed the car as it drove out and pulled the driver over. Inside the passenger compartment were several empty purses, he said.

"She was real jittery," Lee said. "I think she knew she was had."

Police said they found Lang's apartment tidy and her daughter well cared for.

Investigators haven't determined how much money Lang stole. They said she hit 17 churches from Nebraska Road in Palm Harbor to Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard in Clearwater since March 27.

In Florida, Lang has a criminal record dating back to 1984, when Daytona Beach police arrested her on a swindle charge. In 1988 and 1989, she was arrested four times in the state on similar charges.

Records in Georgia were not available Friday.

Harpster's purse had not been returned by Friday afternoon so she didn't know what, if anything, was lost, her husband said. Her credit cards, however, were canceled before Lang tried to use them at Target, police said.

"Where is our culture going?" said Bill Harpster, 87, of Oldsmar. "You have to be careful all the time."

[Last modified May 6, 2006, 06:39:43]