Last month, a New Haven police officer stopped Annette Burnett and Carlos Hamilton in a McDonald’s parking lot. Tipped off that the pair had been stealing from nearby stores, the officer caught them with 24 Axe deodorant products and 19 packs of Febreeze refills – all stolen.
If that wasn’t enough, the officer found two 100-ounce bottles of Gain laundry detergent in Hamilton’s pants.
This feat of shoplifting and many others were outlined in court documents filed Tuesday, accusing Burnett and Hamilton of engaging in a pattern of thefts from grocery and drug stores.
The court documents detail eight thefts that occurred between January 2011 and last month at Kroger stores in New Haven and Fort Wayne and at a Walgreens in New Haven.
Burnett, 43, and Hamilton, 39, stole bottles of liquor and household items, like air freshener and laundry detergent, worth $1,366.75, court documents said.
When the pair was stopped Feb. 13 in the McDonald’s lot, they had just left a Walgreens and before that had been in a Kroger where a security employee recognized them as shoplifters. The employee knew they had been banned from Kroger stores, so he flagged down the New Haven officer, court documents stated.
Burnett, of the 6900 block of Indiana 930 East, and Carlos Hamilton, of the 2800 block of Gay Street, were charged with theft and corrupt business influence.
