OAKHURST - On December 14, 2019, around 6:00 pm, Madera County Sheriff’s Deputy Charlie Robertson responded to a call for service to a business in the 40000 block of Highway 49 for a reported theft of merchandise. Surveillance video from the store showed an unidentified female adult leave the store with a large amount of clothing and flee the scene in a white sedan driven by an unidentified male subject.
During a patrol of the Chukchansi Casino parking garage around 2:00 am, Deputy Robertson observed a white sedan matching the description of the suspect vehicle from the surveillance video. He noted several items of clothing in plain view inside the vehicle that matched the description of the items taken from the store, as well as a purse that the female was seen carrying.
During his investigation, it was discovered that a family member related to the owner of the vehicle had a prior theft-related arrest, and Deputy Robertson was able to confirm a photo match to the female suspect in this case.
Based on this evidence, Deputy Robertson and Deputy Ryan Vermeulen went inside the casino to locate the suspects. Deputies located both subjects and took 31-year old Raymond Harp of Los Banos and 30-year-old Sarah Morrow of Dos Palos into custody.
Harp and Morrow were transported and booked in at Madera County Department of Corrections without incident on charges of felony criminal conspiracy and misdemeanor theft. The stolen items were recovered and returned to the business owner.