FRIENDSWOOD, Texas – The Friendswood Police Department arrested three men accused of stealing from a Kroger.
47-year-old Douglas Wayne Keller and 30-year-old Curtis Lindner were charged with theft.
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33-year-old Eusebio Salazar, Jr. was charged with possession of drug paraphernalia.
On Tuesday, September 8th, undercover officers noticed a suspicious vehicle in the Kroger parking lot on Friendswood Drive.
The driver, later identified as Salazar, parked at the back of the parking lot and two rear passengers, later identified as Keller and Lindner, got out and went inside the store.
Twenty minutes later, Keller exited Kroger with a basket full of groceries, police said, and wheeled them over to the vehicle and seemed to unload them in a hurry.
The undercover officers noted the items to be paper towels, meat products, beer and soda.
Soon after, officers said Lindner also walked out with a cart full of groceries and unloaded them into the vehicle.
When the suspect vehicle left the parking lot, a marked patrol unit stopped the vehicle for expired registration.
The four occupants were asked to exit. During the investigation, Keller, who was riding in the back seat, had a pocket full of unused plastic Kroger grocery bags and two Kroger grocery receipts dated in August.
Police said they also found drugs next to the driver's seat along with several old receipts and Kroger bags.
There were no current receipts matching the stash of grocery items they had just loaded up, according to police.
Meanwhile, the undercover officers reviewed surveillance video at the Kroger store. The video showed Keller walking through the checkout line and showing the cashier a folded piece of paper as if it were a receipt. He exited the store without paying.
Lindner walked through the express/self-checkout without stopping and paying.
Salazar was taken into custody for the drug paraphernalia. Keller and Lindner were taken into custody and received a felony theft charge.
A woman in the car was released without charges.
The officers collected the groceries, which totaled $978.98, and took them back to Kroger.