Crime spree stopped in Ferdinand

A Maysville, North Carolina woman was arrested for several counts of theft after police determined she had stolen a vehicle and broken into several others early Tuesday morning in Ferdinand.

A series of serendipitous events led to her arrest beginning with the report of a stolen vehicle from the Ranger Mart.

Police received the call for a stolen Dodge Nitro at 5:52 a.m. They contacted Logan Beagle at the Ranger Mart who stated his Dodge had been stolen while he was in the store. He told police he had last seen the vehicle traveling east on 16th Street and turning north on State Road 162.

Police recovered the vehicle a few moments later but it was empty.

While police were interviewing Begle, a Dubois County Sheriff’s deputy stopped a vehicle for driving left of center. The deputy noticed that the subject had a lot of keys and one set was on a St. Louis Cardinal lanyard. The deputy issued the driver a warning and let her go.

Begle told the interviewing officer that he had a set of keys on a Cardinal lanyard and police made the connection to the woman that was just pulled over and began searching for the suspect and a silver 1997 Ford Taurus. They located the vehicle within about an hour and detained Vicki Randall, 47, of North Carolina while they sought a search warrant for her vehicle.

After receiving the warrant, police found that Randall had been on a theft spree throughout Ferdinand beginning with a vehicle at the Circle A at 5:10 a.m. There, Randall stole the vehicle owner’s keys and paperwork from the vehicle.

At about 5:30 a.m., she broke into another vehicle parked at the Tri-County YMCA, stealing several items from it. She then proceeded to break into a vehicle on Main Street and another on 16th Street before stealing Begle’s vehicle at the Ranger Mart.

Randall was charged with five counts of theft, five counts of unauthorized entry into a vehicle and one count of auto theft.

Ferdinand police have contacted all the parties involved in the spree and returned the items to their rightful owners.

The investigation is ongoing.

The Dubois County Sheriff’s Department assisted with the investigation and Berg’s Garage assisted with the Taurus.