Suspect Timothy Browne In String Of Grocery Store Purse Snatchings Arrested

JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo. -- Police have arrested a man suspected in a string of purse snatchings at metro area grocery stores, specifically at King Soopers and Safeway.

Timothy Allen Browne, 43, was arrested on July 27, after a woman shopping at a King Soopers store at West Belleview Avenue and South Kipling Parkway reported that someone had stolen her purse from her shopping cart.

Witnesses say the thief left in a black Isuzu Rodeo and a Jefferson County investigator in the area saw the vehicle going north on Kipling. Deputies stopped the Isuzu at Kipling and U.S. Highway 285.

Browne was arrested without incident.

Detectives then leaed that he was recently paroled from the Department of Corrections and the Isuzu was stolen out of Wheat Ridge.

Subsequent searches of the Isuzu, and the motel room that Browne was living in, uncovered stolen property tied to six other reported purse thefts in Jefferson County, Lakewood, Broomfield and Arvada, the sheriff's office said.

The thefts all occurred when the victims left their purses unattended in shopping carts, or when they were with their carts, but distracted with their shopping, said Mark Techmeyer, spokeman for the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office.

All of the thefts occurred in King Soopers and Safeway stores where Browne appeared to have been targeting the elderly, as the majority of victims were senior citizens, Techmeyer said.

He would later use the credit cards, committing identity theft as well, Techmeyer said.

Browne is being held without bond at the Jefferson County jail on parole violation and aggravated motor vehicle theft.

Charges in reference to the purse thefts are pending. His next court date is scheduled for Aug. 12.