Tip leads to check theft arrests

by Kevin Lilly
Pharos-Tribune news editor

June 18, 2009 10:04 pm

— Police have arrested a convicted rapist and his girlfriend for suspicion of stealing checks and attempting to cash them at businesses in two counties.
On Wednesday, Cass County Sheriff detective Brad Sommers acted on a tip generated by local news stories and arrested 46-year-old Bret Lee Sisson and 33-year-old Belinda Jane Myers, both of Walton.
The couple was apprehended at a campsite along the Wabash River in Cass County, not far from where a box of checks was reportedly stolen from a mailbox on May 27.
Sisson, who is being held without bond on a parole hold, was booked into the Cass County Jail on charges of conspiracy, aiding, inducing or causing an offense and possession of a controlled substance. Myers was charged with theft, fraud and forgery.
Since the theft, multiple attempts, some of them successful, were made to cash the checks. The victims placed a stop payment on the checks, but at least two were cashed, one at the Dutch Mill and one at the Avenue Bar in Logansport.
The woman reportedly fled a retail shop in Americus in Tippecanoe County after a clerk asked her for ID when he became suspicious.
The checks police have in their possession are each written for $148 for baby-sitting.
Sommers had been seeking the identity of a woman captured on surveillance video at one of the local taverns attempting to cash one of the stolen checks. Earlier this week, the Pharos-Tribune published a photo of the culprit asking anyone with information on her identity to contact police.
Sommers said he received a handful of tips, one of which provided information that led investigators to Sisson’s residence in Walton. An additional tip directed them to the campsite.
Sisson, who was allegedly in possession of pills not prescribed to him, had been released from prison in September after serving 11 years of a 20-year sentence for class B felony rape. The rape occurred in Cass County in 1996.
At a probable cause hearing Thursday, a judge ruled police had enough evidence for the arrest of Sisson and Myers.
According to police, the couple had used the money to purchase fuel, cigarettes and pay bills.
Sommers thanked the media and the public for their assistance in the investigation.
• Kevin Lilly is news editor of the Pharos-Tribune. He can be reached at (574) 732-5117 or kevin.lilly@pharostribune.com