An eagle-eyed grocery clerk in Itta Bena helped stop a scam recently when she noticed something fishy about two hams.
Ronald Jennings, 48, 4401 Ave. Q 112, Lubbock, Texas, faces shoplifting charges in Washington and Leflore counties after authorities say he used hams he never bought to get refunds.
Itta Bena Police Chief Coy Lee Keys said authorities believe the scam worked like this: The man would go into grocery stores and drop two hams into the cart. Then he allegedly would cut the wrapping on one ham and sprinkle his hair on it.
Keys accused Jennings of taking the hams to the meat department and telling the chief butcher that he wanted to return the hams because of the hair but that the clerk wanted to verify the hams came from the store.
Authorities said the butcher would check out the hams and call the cashier to refund the money for the hams.
The cashier would pay as much as $80 in some cases for the hams that were never purchased in the first place, Keys said.
Authorities believe Jennings started his ham scam route late last week after he arrived in Greenville by bus from Lubbock, Texas. Law enforcement officers in Lubbock have identified Jennings as having recently completed a jail sentence for felony possession of a controlled substance.
A taxi driver, Curtis Sanders, of Union Cab Co. in Greenville, identified Jennings as the man he drove around to two Supervalu stores and a Kroger in Greenville before the man asked the driver to take him to the next largest town.
Keys said the cab driver bypassed Indianola and Moorhead on his way to Greenwood, but that Jennings asked to stop in Itta Bena.
That's where Pamela Gunn, a cashier at the Big Star, spotted him.
Gunn said she was suspicious of Jennings from the time he entered the store.
When the meat department called up front to give her the OK, Gunn refunded the money.
While she counted out $80 from the register, Gunn asked Jennings why he had come in a taxi.
She said he told her his was car in the shop. Jennings also told her that his wife had bought the hams, Gunn said. "I was just being nosy, really."
After he left the store, Gunn realized that Jennings had not come into the store with any hams. When she told Rob Walters, Big Star manager, he called the police.
Keys and another officer took off after Jennings. The police chief said the yellow taxi cab was easily spotted, and Jennings was pulled over near Fort Pemberton on U.S. 82. He was transported by police back to the Itta Bena Big Star where Gunn and others identified him.
According to Keys, Greenville police are still determining whether Jennings visited more than the three grocery stores.
The Itta Bena police chief expects Washington County authorities to place Jennings in their custody soon.
