azcentral.com Wrote:BRADENTON, Fla. - A female jogger recently made off with Sheila Fullerton's purse and her confidence in venturing out of her home in the motorized wheelchair she must use to get around daily.
Fullerton, 55, suffered from polio as a child and then a bad car accident left her unable to walk much. A recent fall has made things even worse as she broke her ankle and her foot.
On Feb. 11, she traveled in her wheelchair to a Walgreen's drugstore just a few blocks from her home. She was waiting to cross the street in her wheelchair and was putting her purse inside the plastic bag with the items she'd just purchased.
Fullerton says she looked up and saw a female jogger running toward her and within seconds, she says, the woman snatched her purse and kept running.
"She snatched it and took off and was gone," Fullerton said. "I mean, she went right through traffic and everything."
Fullerton says the woman is White with blonde hair. She's between the ages of 19 and 30 and was wearing a two-piece spandex outfit. The top looked like a jogging bra and her stomach was exposed. It was black with green and yellow striping under the arms.
The suspect also wore black, tight-fitting capri length stretch pants, which also had a green and yellow stripe down the leg. She had on white running shoes and was listening to some type of portable music device.
Fullerton says traffic was heavy in the area and even though she yelled and screamed, no one tried to help her.
"I turned and hollered at her and she just acted like she didn't hear me."
The Manatee County Sheriff's Office sent out a helicopter and deputies to patrol the area but were not able to track down the suspect. Fullerton believes the jogger lives in the area.
Looking back, Fullerton wishes she'd brought her dog with her that day.
"Yeah, Brody would have got her," she said. "He would have nailed her."
Fullerton, who hopes the suspect is caught soon, said she couldn't believe what happened to her.
"The world is really going to - in the old saying - to hell in a handbasket,' " she said.