Thief Had Nose for Fine Perfume

Thief Had Nose for Fine Perfume
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Some thieves prefer jewels.

Others like cash.

But a thief in Atlanta’s Buckhead neighborhood -- who police believe is the man they just arrested -- has been going for Davidoff, Kenneth Cole, Aqua Di Gio by Armani, Issey Miyake.

Expensive perfumes.

Since March of 2005, police say, the thief has had a nose for the fine perfumes at the ULTA store in Buckhead -- raiding the store repeatedly, and filling his sack with hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of perfume each time.

Then he'd re-sell each bottle on the street and come back to the same store for more. Again and again.

"He actually would stand outside the door and watch [through the store’s windows] for when no one was in sight,” the store’s General Manager, Becky Sullivan, told 11Alive News. “And he would come into the building and take a bag out of his pocket and load it up with fragrances."

He'd just ignore the customers, Sullivan said, and ignore employees who would be ordering him to stop.

"Once he'd come in he would advise them, 'You all know what time it is,' and continue stealing and leaving out of the store," said Atlanta Police Detective Brian Anderson.

And Anderson said the thief showed no concern for the presence of store surveillance cameras that recorded his every move.

It got to the point where employees were terrified of the man. Never knowing when he'd strike again. And he was fast.

“In a minute or two minutes,” Sullivan said, he would select what he wanted and run away. “A very intimidating person, you know, in a store full of women.”

Unstoppable. And uncatchable.

Until, police say, right after he hit the store this past Saturday afternoon.

"Detective Anderson came in the door with the guy's jacket, and he said, 'I caught him, I caught him.' And I was just, like, very emotional," Sullivan said in describing the relief she felt.

"In essence, he had a 'catch me' attitude," Anderson said.

Detective Anderson and Detective Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel did catch their suspect after working for months on the case.

Anderson spotted the man running out of the store on Saturday, and ran after him, finally catching him at the nearby Buckhead MARTA rail station.

The suspect is 34-year-old Jermaine Higgins. Higgins is a convicted shoplifter and forger from Metro Atlanta who was on probation after serving two years and seven months in a state prison. And police say Higgins has a record of 34 previous arrests for kidnapping, obstruction, shoplifting, forgery and trespassing.

“We just needed to bring this man to justice,” said Detective Gwinn-Villaroel.

The detectives say when they arrested Higgins, he had a sack full of perfumes he’d just stolen from the store, worth more than $2,100. And the detectives say Higgins had carefully picked out what he wanted during the short time he was in the store, as if he were working from a shopping list -- for example, one bottle of Armani Mania worth $49, four bottles of Kenneth Cole worth a total of $196, ten bottles of Aqua DiGio, worth a total of $650, and one bottle of Issey Miyake worth $48, plus the other bottles of perfume police say were in Higgins’ sack.

“This guy was hitting [the store] pretty much twice a week, at least twice a week,” Anderson said. “The items that he was stealing were small and high value....I believe he was selling them at clubs, after-hours establishments, in the neighborhood, for a fraction of what the actual store price, the retail price, is on them.”

“He’ll be in jail for a while,” said Repeat Offender Officer Wes Tippens.

No one's breathing easier now than Becky Sullivan and her staff.

"I would just like to thank the detectives, Anderson and Gwinn-Villaroel, for all their help, and my whole staff is just truly delighted."

Police are charging Higgins, initially, with nine felony counts of Theft by Taking, involving at least $10,000 worth of merchandise. They say they expect to file additional charges against him as their investigation continues.

Higgins is being held in the Fulton County Jail. No bond hearing has been scheduled, yet, on the felony charges.

They believe Higgins targeted that particular store because he was able to run to the nearby Buckhead MARTA rail station to get away.