WINTER PARK, Fla. – A Winter Park woman said her purse was snatched outside a Publix store Sunday.
At about 4 p.m., officers with the Casselberry Police Department responded to the Publix on U.S. 17-92 to investigate.
Deborah Sibille, 55, told News 6 on Monday that she had placed her purse in her shopping cart as she loaded groceries. She said her 8-year-old granddaughter alerted her to what was happening.
"She screamed," Sibille said. "So I turned around and I saw the guys."
Sibille said she looked one of the men in his eye, and begged for him to leg go of her purse. The men were inside a vehicle at the time.
Sibille said as the vehicle sped up, she fell to the ground and scraped her knee.
"Believe me, that changed my life," Sibille said. "I live in the United States for the last 23 years and I've never had problems."
The Orange County Sheriff's Office issued an alert after two other purse snatchings at the Publix on South Alafaya Trail. In both of those incidents, the thief is seen in the passenger seat of a vehicle, grabbing the purse from inside the moving car.
Orange County detectives are now working with Casselberry police to determine if the same white Ford Explorer was involved in all three incidents.
Casselberry police wrote in its report that the manager at Publix told officers that the business does not have surveillance cameras in the parking lot.
Sibille said that her daughter got a message from a Casselberry detective, stating that officials had located a possible suspect vehicle with her belongings inside.