Darlene Happ, 62, of Lakeview, was issued a summons Tuesday, Aug. 27, for theft after reportedly skip-scanning two bags of dog treats from the self-checkout aisles of Wal-Mart, 2281 S. Main St.
Officers of the Bellefontaine Police Department were dispatched to the store around 4:30 p.m. on a report of a customer that had failed to pay for two bags of dog treats upon checkout. An asset protection officer at Wal-Mart told police he witnessed Happ fail to scan a bag of Dream Bone dog treats and a bag of duck jerky dog treats during her check-out.
The total cost of the items was $77.45, officers were told.
Happ told officers it was an accident and that she forgot to scan the items by mistake. She said she thought her husband scanned the items, and her husband thought that she had scanned them, she said.
Officers observed surveillance footage and saw that at the end of the transaction, everything was bagged for the treats which had not been scanned.
The bags of treats were large, and it was not reasonable to claim that they could have been overlooked, police reported. The dog treats weren’t so large that they did not fit in a grocery bag, but they were large enough to not be overlooked, officers report.
Happ was charged with theft by deception and given a mandatory court date.