WICHITA FALLS (KFDX/KJTL) — With temperatures blazing, air conditioners are flying off the shelves, sometimes without passing through the checkout stand, and Wichita Falls police say many of those are the result of a one-man crime wave during the current heat wave.
They have charged Travelle Mason with another theft of an air conditioner and flat-screen TVs from a local Walmart.
Police and Walmart loss prevention officers say he simply loads them into a cart and takes them out the door to his white Toyota Camry.
On May 15 officers say he was at the Walmart on Central Freeway and took two flat screens out to his car and on May 16 they say he went to the Walmart on Lawrence Road, loaded two air conditioners into a cart and took them out to his car, loaded them, in the car then went back in and got two more and loaded them in the Toyota and left.
On May 19 Walmart called police and said he was back at the Lawrence Road location in the same car and police arrived and gave him official notice Walmart was banning him from all store locations.
But on June 1, police say he took two more flat screens and another air conditioner, and on June 7, he was charged with criminal trespass when found at the Lawrence Road location again.
Police reviewed video and he was arrested Sunday, July 3, and had this theft charge added, as well as criminal trespass.