Selected reports from the Bainbridge Island Police Department blotter.
Friday, March 22
10:10 a.m. An elderly woman on Elizabeth Place was nearly scammed out of $2,140. The woman received a phone call from someone she thought was her grandson. The “grandson” put another man on the phone who said he worked for the American Embassy in Mexico and that her grandson has been arrested in a car that had drugs in it.
The man asked that she wire $2,140 to a bank in Haiti so that her grandson could be released from jail. The woman complied and sent the money.
Luckily, however, American Express found the transaction to be suspicious and flagged it. The wire was not completed and the woman was able to retrieve her money. Police informed the woman that this is a common scam that people outside the country run on elderly citizens.
4:41 p.m. A woman reported that a man she knew took her debit card out of her purse. He then withdrew money from several ATMs before returning the card to the purse. The woman didn’t know her money was gone until she tried to withdraw money two days later.
The woman contacted the man about the stolen money and he admitted to taking it. He said he would leave the money at her house, but instead left a note that said he was sorry and asked for forgiveness. The man has not been seen since and the woman believes he fled to California.
6:32 p.m. After loading groceries into her car, a woman left her purse in a shopping cart in the Safeway parking lot. When she realized what she had done, she returned to the parking lot but her purse was gone. No one had turned it into Safeway. The purse was a black-and-white Bagallini and contained a driver’s license, passport, checkbook, credit and debit cards and keys to a local school.
Sunday, March 24
7:31 a.m. A man who purchased a home on Komedal Road reported finding a bag on his new property that he believed contained drugs. In the moldy, dirty yellow duffle bag, police found metal and wooden boxes, empty ziplock bags and a bag containing 60 Seroquel pills.
The man also gave police three broken glass pipes, charred with burnt residue, that he found inside the home.
