You Didn't Search Her Well Enough

It was just a month or so ago that I brought you the charming tale of a couple of super-sized women who were arrested for shoplifting many, many items by concealing the items 'neath their rolls of fat. Oh, and I can tell by the gagging sounds you just emitted that you remember said story all too well. So I guess you'd better brace yourself for this one, as it is quite similar in method to the previous story. I'm still trying to figure out some of the finer points to this story, but maybe you can help me out with some of them. Let's find out!

What we have is a story from the fine folks at CBS Minnesota (that's in Minnesota). It would seem that our "hero", a one Stephanie Moreland, was arrested on New Year's Eve under suspicion of stealing a $6,500 "short mink coat" from the Alaskan Fur Company. Now, when they say a "short mink coat", is that supposed to imply that the coat is not very long or that it was made from rather diminutive minks? I'm not sure, either.

Ms. Moreland was confronted in the store, but denied having taken said coat of mink. When she left the store, the clerk wrote down her license plate number and called police. The police tracked down the car and found a hanger from the store in the car. The article claims that "They searched her for weapons and booked her into their jail for the weekend on theft charges." Uh-huh. Yeah, I'm not quite so sure that she was really "searched'. I'm pretty sure that she was not "searched" sufficiently.

OK, so she's been in jail for a couple of days when "Three days later, a detective interviewed Moreland who admitted she stole the coat but claim she had already sold it." It's unclear to me why she admitted to the theft at that point. Maybe she thought they were going to let her go or something. I don't know, but she had carried on her little scheme to this point, I don't see why she didn't just keep going with it a little bit longer. Wait. What?

That's right. I said "her scheme". You weren't really buying any of that stuff that she was spewing out, were you? Oh, come on! She stole the coat all right. But she didn't sell it. I kind of wish that she had though. That's because (wait for it) "When the investigator informed Moreland he would be sending her to the Hennepin County Jail downtown, he was shocked when she lifted up her dress and pulled out the mink coat from her underwear." Oh. My. God.

Pulled the mink coat from her underwear?! What the what?! How big is this ol' gal again? Let's see...it says that she's 270 pounds. It does not list a height. I'm guessing that if she can conceal an entire mink coat, short or not, inside of her underwear, she can't be more than four feet tall. Good Lord, woman. And it was in there for three days?! How is that possible? What is going on over there at the jail in Minnesota? Clearly whatever it is, it does not involve thorough body searches at all.

The Bloomington Police Commander, a one Mark Stehlik, explained that “She had modified her underwear. She actually cut the rear of the underwear out so that from the back it appeared she was not wearing underwear and then stuffed it down the front.” What does that even mean? Cut out the rear of her underwear? I get that, but what does that have to do with it being able to appear that she's not wearing underwear? How does not appearing to wear underwear from the rear make it so it doesn't appear that you have a $6,500 short mink coat shoved down your front? Why does it matter if someone else thinks that she is wearing underwear or not? Is that some sort of a "thing" in the shoplifting community? I'm so confused. Three days of underwear mink?! (No, that is not a euphemism.) I hope they burned that thing after she pulled it out of...there.

There are really a lot of unanswered questions here. I realize that. But there's only so much I can do. If you know anything about this apparent underwear altering which is seemingly conducive to shoplifting, let me know.