OKLAHOMA CITY – Oklahoma City police arrested two men following a string of high dollar jewelry store thefts.
The arrests are nearly a year in the making.
Combined the two suspects are accused of at least five thefts dating back to last year, but the criminal activity picked up steam recently, with three thefts last week alone.
It all started in July 2013 at the Penn Square Macy’s, continued in October of last year at Gordon’s Jewelers in Quail Springs Mall, then last week back at the Penn Square Macy’s, and a day later at the Quail Springs Macy’s and finally at Gordon’s again.
Oklahoma City police claim Jesse Brooks stole expensive jewelry in three of those cases, totaling more than 12 thousand dollars.
Another man, Walter Arrowood, is accused of committing the same crime on two of those occasions.
All had the same M.O.
“The suspect goes in the store by himself and asks to see high dollar jewelry, but then runs out of the store with it,” said Oklahoma City police Sgt. Jennifer Wardlow.
This week investigators tacked one of the suspects, Arrowood, down to small motel on NW 39th street.
As luck would have it, police found Brooks in the same hotel room.
“The crimes they were committing were similar in nature, but we don’t think the suspects were together while committing the crimes,” said Wardlow. “It just so happened when they were arrested, they were at the same location.”
It’s not clear how Arrowood and Brooks knew each other, or how much they knew of the others alleged criminal activity.
Police are just happy, as the phrase goes, they killed two birds with one stone.
“It’s always good to get people like this off the streets,” said Wardlow. “Obviously, they were becoming more frequent so we wanted to get them caught and put in jail.”
The suspects were both booked into the Oklahoma County jail.
Each is facing multiple counts of larceny and making false declarations to pawn brokers, as they allegedly tried to sell the stolen rings.
