BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – A mother faces charges in Brevard County after deputies said she used her children to help her shoplift from a Walmart and then abandoned them to run from law enforcement when they were caught.
Katrina Latoya Singleton, 37, was arrested Thursday, according to jail records.
Investigators said surveillance video caught Singleton directing and assisting her children in taking a shopping cart full of items from the store on June 30, totaling $649.78 in value.
Footage showed Singleton’s 10-year-old child walking out of the store with the shopping cart of merchandise, according to a Facebook post by the sheriff’s office.
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Deputies, who were working with Walmart loss prevention to crack down on shoplifting, approached the child in the parking lot of the store and detained them, according to the post.
Another of Singleton’s children, who is 18 years old, then met with deputies in the parking lot and identified himself as the child’s brother, investigators said.
Deputies allowed the 18-year-old to call his mother to get her to come meet them, but surveillance video showed her leaving the store from the opposite side of the building where she then took off, according to the sheriff’s office.
The children’s grandparents were then called to come pick up the 10-year-old, deputies said. A warrant was issued for Singleton’s arrest.
She faces charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, petit retail theft and child neglect without great bodily harm.
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