A woman trying to help strangers at a Walmart store in Culpeper, Virginia, ended up the victim of a violent abduction and robbery late last month, police say.
On Aug. 27, police say, the victim was shopping when a man and a woman approached her, saying they had car trouble and asking if she could help them. The woman ultimately agreed to help them and let them into her car.
“She was a very trusting person and allowed the two suspects into her car, and that’s when they produced a handgun and forced her to the ATM,” Culpeper Police Chief Christopher Settle said.
Police released store surveillance images of the two suspects inside the Walmart.
Investigators say the suspects allegedly forced the victim to an ATM at gunpoint, made her withdraw money and then told her to drive to her home in Orange, Virginia, where they stole belongings from her home.
Once they left, the victim called police.
But how did the suspects get away if they traveled in the victim’s car to her home? Police say the Walmart surveillance video showed the suspects getting out of a black SUV before approaching the victim; later, the video shows that black SUV appearing to follow the victim’s car out of the parking lot.
Police knew the victim’s license plate information, so they put that into their automated license plate reading (LPR) system.
While retracing the trip from the Walmart to the victim’s home, the LPR system tracked the victim’s license plate as it moved past various LPRs positioned in Culpeper and into Orange. Then investigators looked deeper.
“Four to five seconds behind each one of those images where the victim’s car went through, we saw a black SUV following the victim’s car. So we were able to link this black SUV,” Settle said.
Police went into the LPR system and added the black SUV to what’s called a hotlist, so if the SUV passed any other LPRs in Virginia, police would get an alert.
And they did: Over the next 24 hours, alerts came in from Stafford, then King George County, where police there pulled over the car and arrested the three people inside.
None of the three suspects are in the country legally, police said. They’re being held in custody. All three suspects are facing multiple felony charges, including abduction by force and robbery.
Before having technology like this, “it would’ve been tough” to find that SUV, Settle said.
Several jurisdictions in Virginia are using automated license plate reading technology to track violent suspects and critical missing person cases. Some people have expressed privacy concerns, and recently Virginia’s legislature approved legislation that governs how police are allowed to use the technology and how long they’re allowed to store the data.
“Without the technology and without the LPRs, it’s safe to say we would not have had these three violent individuals in jail within 24 hours,” Settle said.
He said using technology in policing saves critical time and can help police track down suspects potentially before they strike again.
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