LEWISTON – The Lewiston-Woodville Police Department and the Bertie County Sheriff’s Office are working to try and solve a series of larcenies dealing with copies of the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald after papers were stolen from two businesses in the town this past weekend.

According to the Sheriff’s Office, sometime in the morning of Saturday, Jan. 24, a Toyota mini-van driven by a black female pulled into the parking lot of the Duck-Thru convenience store in Lewiston.  The woman reportedly exited the vehicle and approached a newspaper vending machine, where she is alleged to have put in money to open the box and then extracted all of the remaining copies of the Saturday edition of the News-Herald.  Though the woman’s actions were seen by several witnesses, she continued, and placed the stolen newspapers into the vehicle and left the convenience store.  One of the witnesses had copied the vehicle’s license tag number and alerted the Sheriff’s Office.

In the meantime, on Monday, another witness related a story to the News-Herald that this same vehicle had earlier on Saturday pulled up to the Family Foods grocery store in Lewiston and a woman fitting the same description committed the same larceny.  The woman is said to have returned to Family Foods a second time after visiting the Duck-Thru and tried to retrieve several more copies of the newspaper, but this time was confronted in the parking lot by a Family Foods staffer.  At that time the woman is said to have returned the newspapers taken on her second trip.

Sheriff’s investigators said they have followed the lead of the tag number of the vehicle, but that the investigation into the incident is still ongoing.