ST. PETERS — Police need help to identify two men from a burglary of a local produce store. The owners of Orlando’s Produce estimate the thieves stole between two and three thousand dollars.
“You see one of the two perpetrators crawl through the office doors and kind of crawl on the floor. He actually knocks something down on the floor, picks it up, and replaces it,” said Madi Orlando, Owner.
She said that in the surveillance video, you can even hear the men talking to each other. “Talking about how they had gotten rid of the camera hard drive so none of it would be on footage but they actually just ended up drowning out wifi box. So we have all of the footage of them coming in and stealing the money from the office,” said Orlando.
“There were a couple of gummy worms left, like they were having a snack in the middle of robbing us that they had just left behind laying on the freezer,” said Brady Snavley, Manager. He said when he went to open the store Sunday morning, things were out of place and noticed money was missing. “I noticed our tip jar was empty. Which I knew it wasn’t from the night before because I closed and I knew there was no one else coming in who would have emptied it,” said Snavley. He said tips are split between their staff and the tip jar had around $600 in it.
Customers are already helping out to fill it back up. “When I saw it on Facebook, I could not believe such a good business would go through something like this,” said Jayne Huth, customer.
Orlando said she feels violated. “It is like a second home to us. So it is a icky feeling, a gross feeling just to know that someone was in your space and taking what’s yours,” said Orlando.
St. Peters police said anyone with information should contact Detective Olshwanger at 636-278-2244 ext. 3530, or dolshwanger@stpetersmo.net or anonymously at 636-278-1000.
