Adams woman tracks lost cellphone back to Little Caesars employee who allegedly stole it while working

Jan. 20—WATERTOWN — Ashlee Hibbitts went from forgetting her cellphone at Little Caesars to tracking it as it moved along a map of Watertown, not knowing it was heading to the home of the employee who allegedly stole it.

The Little Caesars employee, Tina M. Tibbles, 54, of 508 Cooper St., was charged by city police Sunday with fourth-degree criminal possession of stolen property. The felony count is a result of allegedly stealing Ms. Hibbitts' iPhone 11 Pro Max, which was worth $1,100, according to city police. The phone is now put away into evidence with the police department.

Ms. Tibbles allegedly took the phone while on the clock at Little Caesars. She was back to work this week. Ms. Hibbitts said she isn't in the business of getting people fired, but she still believes there should be more accountability after what she experienced.

It was Sunday night and Ms. Hibbitts, a 21-year-old from Adams, was going to grab some pizzas. Her boyfriend, Colin Gushlaw, was playing hockey at the Watertown Municipal Arena and she wanted to drop off some food. She went to Little Caesars on State Street with a few friends and waited for her pizzas to get done. Ms. Tibbles was working that night, and Ms. Hibbitts remembers apologizing to her because she came with an order shortly before the shop was set to close.

As she waited, Ms. Hibbitts was expecting to see her cousin since she worked at the location, but she wasn't on that night. Instead, Ms. Hibbitts used her iPhone to FaceTime her cousin and told her she was missed. She placed her cellphone on the counter after the call, paid for her pizzas and left.

She and her friends then drove to the arena. Ms. Hibbitts parked the car and grabbed some cheesy bread, then noticed her phone was missing. Naturally she checked between and underneath the seats, but it wasn't there. The only other place it could be was Little Caesars.

Her friend called Little Caesars thinking the phone was left there, and asked to see if anyone had found it.

"My friend called and Tina (Tibbles) answered," Ms. Hibbitts said. "She immediately was like 'Nope, haven't seen it.'"

Ms. Hibbitts still thought it was there. As employees were locking the Little Caesars doors, Ms. Hibbitts drove up again and asked if they were sure they didn't see an iPhone. Still, Ms. Tibbles and another staffer said they hadn't seen anything.

"Tina (Tibbles) made the comment of 'Maybe somebody stole it,'" Ms. Hibbitts said. "And then she chuckled."

They again looked through Ms. Hibbitts' and around the parking lot — Ms. Tibbles standing nearby — before Ms. Hibbitts accessed her Find My iPhone tracking app on her Apple Watch. As they all stood there, the tracking device showed her phone at Little Caesars.

"I just thought, 'OK it has to be in my car,'" Ms. Hibbitts said. "At this point, Tina (Tibbles) said they were leaving."

She looked through her car again, but still nothing. Ms. Hibbitts thought that she would drive back to the arena and then track her phone again. If it showed up at the arena while she was there then that would confirm the phone was somewhere in her car.

She got to the arena and fired up her MacBook, which would show a more accurate location than her smaller Apple Watch. She turned on the tracking app, and it didn't show the device at the arena. It showed her phone on Mill Street — and it was moving.

"With Find My iPhone, the location of the phone moves as the phone moves, so she had to have been still in the vehicle," she said. "So I was following it and my friend was calling the police at the same time."

The phone moved across the map and stopped at a residential area behind Bolton's Pharmacy. They connected with police and met Officer Pearce A. Parsons at the nearby Stewart's Shops.

"Oh my gosh he (Officer Parsons) kept me calm and was joking with me to make me feel better," Ms. Hibbitts said. "He was honestly phenomenal throughout the whole thing."

She briefed Officer Parsons on what was going on, and he told them to relax at Stewart's as he and another unit looked around the area behind Bolton's. They looked around the apartments in the area. Nothing turned up, but as they were walking in the parking lot, a woman who lived there opened her window.

"She asked them what they are looking for and the cops said 'Something,'" Ms. Hibbitts said. "And then the cops said 'Were you by chance at Little Caesars tonight? And she goes 'Yes I work there.'"

It appears that was the beginning of the end of Ms. Tibbles' alleged iPhone jacking.

"She kind of sold herself out," Ms. Hibbitts said. "I think she was going to open the window to throw the phone out."

Police found the phone underneath a pile of clothes inside Ms. Tibbles home.

In deciding whether to press charges, Ms. Hibbitts and her boyfriend discussed the string of events that led to her arrest. They asked Ms. Tibbles about the iPhone in a phone call and face to face. Ms. Hibbitts thinks of the joke Ms. Tibbles made about someone stealing it, and she said officers gave her a chance to come clean.

"I told Officer Parsons that if she would have just seen me outside crying when they closed and she would have just pulled it out of her pocket and given it to me, I probably would have just walked away thankful to have my phone," Ms. Hibbitts said. "That's why I went forward with pressing charges."

As of Tuesday evening, two days after the arrest, Ms. Tibbles was still working at the pizza shop, according to another employee. The phone she allegedly stole is now in evidence. If not for those two details, Ms. Hibbitts said the situation might be chalked up to a bizarre, stressful, perhaps funny few hours. Instead, she's without her phone, and she can't help but wonder why Ms. Tibbles hasn't been held accountable at work since that's where the alleged crime occurred.

Ms. Hibbitts prides herself on not being a person who advocates for the firing of another, but she is torn when the employee had what appeared to be several opportunities to come clean and take responsibility.

The supervisor of the business, Chris Carroll, said "we have no statement" when asked about the situation.

It's more than just a phone to Ms. Hibbitts.

"I'm 21 and I have busted my butt for what I have," Ms. Hibbitts said. "The phone was the first thing that was my big-girl step by myself — getting my own phone plan and buying my own phone. So that's why I felt she deserves consequences for her actions."

It has all of her passwords on it, her photos and methods to pay bills. She could pay bills on her laptop, but her passwords to pay those bills are on her phone. And now she can't do any of that as police are retaining her phone as evidence. It carries most of her information on it, but what sticks out to her mother, Terri, is that she won't have a phone while she's driving from Adams to Watertown in snow storms.

"Ashlee has gone through a manager training program at Price Chopper," her mother said. "She's working a new job at Hannaford. She works 40 hours a week, busts her butt, pays all of her own bills, and for someone to steal something and not have any consequences, it's very frustrating. And now, Ashlee has the consequences because she is without her phone."

Ms. Hibbitts is glad she'll at least have a phone when it's released from evidence, but she wonders why some sort of action has yet to be taken at Little Caesars.

"That's very upsetting for me that she is even still there," Ms. Hibbitts said. "I don't want people to think that I'm trying to take her job because she took my phone. It's just the fact that she isn't getting held accountable for what she did. She stole a customer's phone on the clock. In my opinion, no company should keep someone who is willing to steal a customer's phone. Who knows what else they are capable of stealing?"