Reader, make of this what you will. It’s what Darien police say they know of the matter, based on what they were told and what they found, but — fair warning — you’ll be scratching your head:
The report by a 34-year-old Norwalk woman that her cell phone was stolen at Whole Foods Market started out looking like a regular theft. The woman said she went to the supermarket at 150 Ledge Road at 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 11 and was there for about half an hour.
When she got to the cash register at about 4 p.m., she noticed that her purse was slightly open and her iPhone 6, a 16G phone which she valued at about $750, was missing.
She used her Find My iPhone app and was able to lock the phone, which then displayed a message saying whoever found it should call a number and arrange to return it.
Descent into the uncanny begins at this point
Shortly after that, the victim received a call (or someone received a call — the police report as relayed by a department spokesman was unclear on where the call was received; the victim, recall, is now missing her iPhone).
The caller, a female, said she had the phone but was on her way to Queens and would return the phone the next day at 11:40 a.m. She hung up. Further attempts to contact her were unsuccessful.
The phone was last tracked heading in toward New York City.
Video recording
Police officers met with a manager at Whole Foods and reviewed video surveillance records at the store, which showed the victim doing what she said she did at the store: shopping in the prepared food section for about 30 minutes, until 4:05 p.m., when she walked toward the cash registers.
The video recording showed no one stealing her phone or following her, although there was a 25-second period in which the victim stepped out of the view of the camera in the prepared food section.
The phone returns
The next day, at about 12:30 p.m., a man, the woman’s roommate, called police and left a voice mail with an officer saying the complainant’s cell phone had been returned to her. The officer called the roommate back to get more information.
The roommate said the female who said she had the phone had asked to meet at 11:40 a.m. at Darien Railroad Station. The female, who the man said had an “Indian” accent, did not say how she came to possess the phone. She came to the station driving a black Honda minivan.
Based on the police description, it was unclear that police had spoken again with the victim, but the following information was in the report:
The victim herself was at the train station to retrieve the phone and did get it back. No one was able to provide police with a description of the woman from the black Honda minivan. The victim was happy to have her phone back and didn’t want to pursue charges.
And there the matter rests.
Did money change hands at the train station? Was the phone really stolen at Whole Foods? Why did the victim not want to press charges? Why was the victim’s roommate calling police but not the victim? How do you spend 30 minutes in the prepared foods section of Whole Foods? Reader, don’t ever expect to know.
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