Shoplifting Suspect Tries to Hide in Cab of Big Rig

A Wrightsville woman is accused of shoplifting $5 worth of food items from a Watkinsville convenience store.

Police Chief Lee O'Dillon said it happened on Wednesday, July 24, around 5:30 p.m. Officers were called to the J&B Shell Foodmart, 1461 Greensboro Highway, where witnesses said they saw a woman putting a package of instant soup, a bag of pork rinds, and a bag of potato chips into her purse and leaving the store without paying for anything.  The woman then climbed into the passenger's side of a tractor-trailer truck and headed south on GA Highway 15. 

When police caught up with the truck and stopped it, the woman attempted to hide inside the sleeper cab, according to O'Dillon's news release, but she and the stolen items were located.

Karen F. Graddy, 48, was arrested and charged with theft by shoplifting. A computer check revealed that she was wanted on a felony probation violation warrant by the Laurens County Sheriff’s Department.  Graddy was booked into the Oconee County Jail.  Once the shoplifting charge is adjudicated, O'Dillon said, she will be turned over to Laurens County authorities.

The driver of the big rig, also from Wrightsville, stated that he did not realize that  Graddy had stolen anything from inside the store.  He was allowed to continue southbound.

Police also responded to the following incidents:

• On Monday, July 22, at 2:05 p.m., police were called to Whitehall Road at Third Street after a 1991 Pontiac LeMans and a 2004 Chevrolet Silverado were involved in a collision.   Neither driver was injured but both vehicles had to be towed away from the accident  scene.  The 94-year-old driver of the Pontiac was charged with failure to yield to the right of way. The LeMans had exited Third Street northward into the path of  the eastbound pick-up.

• On Friday, July 26 at 11 a.m., a tech supervisor with Charter Communications reported that sometime during the past several days someone had stolen two new “Scalable Fiber Optic Nodes” from the cable lines along Harden Hill Road and Whitehall Road.  The electronic boxes were recently installed and mounted on the cable lines high on the utility  poles. They had not been activated. Anyone with any information concerning this theft is asked to contact Watkinsville police at 706-769-7891.
  

• Police responded to a call of a 2013 Ford Taurus crashing into the ditch off VFW Drive near Cedar Drive on Sunday, July 28, at 9:47 p.m. The driver was not injured.  David  George McCauley, 44, of a VFW Drive address, was charged with DUI and improper lane usage, according to the news release.  McCauley was  booked and later released after posting bond. An arrest isn't a conviction.
  

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