San Xavier Beat
Sept. 26, 4:18 a.m.
When a convenience-store clerk caught a woman trying to steal two cartons of cigarettes, she told him that a man outside had threatened to murder her if she didn't get them—so the clerk let her go, and she was never apprehended, according to a Pima County Sheriff's Department report.
When sheriff's deputies questioned the clerk, who worked at a west-side Circle K, she told them that a short, heavyset woman had come into the store, gone boldly straight behind the counter and tried to walk out the door without paying. The clerk said when she confronted the woman (which was only to be expected), she claimed a man outside—whom the clerk could see through the glass storefront—said "he would take her life if she did not get the cigarettes."
The clerk didn't know if this was a scam or not, and apparently she wasn't willing to take the chance that the woman's life was really in danger—so she let the subject walk away with both cartons, valued at about $66 each.
At the time of the report, deputies hadn't located either the
