Pumpkin Theft Report Comes With a Dropped Debit Card

Several pumpkins were reported stolen from a Tops store on Grand Island, New York. That’s already an odd choice of merchandise if you’re hoping nobody notices what you’re carrying.

Then a jacket containing a debit card fell from the suspect’s vehicle.

The pumpkins may have been seasonal. The paperwork practically brought itself.

According to a local blotter account of the Erie County Sheriff’s Office weekly report, Tops employees reported the theft on October 2. Security video reportedly confirmed the incident. Deputies contacted the debit card’s owner, who agreed to turn himself in. A 23-year-old Grand Island man was charged with petit larceny.

The charge is an allegation. There’s no court outcome in the account, and it doesn’t say how many pumpkins were taken or what they were worth. It also doesn’t say exactly when the jacket fell. What it does say is plenty.

A jacket is an impressive thing to lose during a reported pumpkin theft. It’s not a receipt that slipped out of a pocket. It’s the pocket. With a debit card inside.

And there was security video, too. Between the camera and the jacket, this incident had two entirely separate ways to make itself less mysterious.

I’d love to know how many pumpkins were involved, mostly to understand the jacket-to-pumpkin ratio. One jacket for several pumpkins seems like a poor exchange, even before deputies call the cardholder.

The report doesn’t say whether the pumpkins were recovered. It does, however, account for the jacket.

That may be the only part of this trip with a confirmed destination.