CENTERVILLE — Two teens walked into a small business in Centerville and left with hundreds of dollars in things they did not buy.
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As reported on News Center 7 at 11:00 p.m., the store owner chose not to press charges; instead, she posted security video to Facebook and asked the teens to come forward.
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Leslie Moss, the owner of Shoppe Smitten in Centerville, chose not to contact police after two teen girls stole several items totaling nearly $600.
“I was just shaking when I was watching it and trying to think about what’s the best way to go about this, especially when I saw that it was two young girls involved,” Moss said.
The girls left with lip balms, trinkets, sunglasses, clothes, and three ceramic fish.
“You could see in the camera footage, it went from a very empty bag to a very full filled bag that they got out of the store with,” Moss said.
Instead, she shared the security camera footage of the two girls on Facebook, asking them to come forward and do the right thing.
Moss said she only wanted the items returned and that the social impact and consequences at home were punishment enough.
“I thought I would rather speak to them face to face, say the hard things in love, but also give them grace because I found that grace can completely change the course of one’s life,” Moss said.
This isn’t the first time someone has stolen from Moss’s store.
“This has happened one other time on a much smaller scale about 8 years ago, and I handled it very similarly. And that individual now, I know, has a small business of her own,” Moss said.
Moss said she hopes to make a similar impact this time around.
She has already gotten the items back from one of the girls. The other is supposed to return what she took next week.
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