Police: Man stole $20K in purses from Bentley; broke into RV during eclipse in Palm Beach
A man took advantage of the recent partial solar eclipse to steal from a recreational vehicle, just days after he also took a bag of valuable purses from a Bentley on Worth Avenue, Palm Beach police said.
According to arrest reports, the 21-year-old Hallandale Beach man nabbed a brown paper bag with four purses worth about $20,000 total from the Bentley on April 3. Days later, he slipped into an RV parked along South Ocean Boulevard for the celestial event on April 8.
Palm Beach police said in the first incident, a woman parked her white, four-door Bentley in the 300 block of Worth Avenue and went into Only Authentics to ask about selling or consigning four Chanel purses that were on the front passenger seat of her car.
The woman was in the store for about an hour before leaving. When she got to her home in Boca Raton, she realized the handbags were missing, police said. While she didn't have serial numbers for the missing bags, the woman gave police photos of the four missing purses: a pink Chanel bag with gold straps worth $8,000, a silver Chanel bag worth $4,000, a vintage blue-patterned Chanel bag worth $6,000 and a blue and white Chanel purse worth $2,000.
A Palm Beach police officer asked for surveillance footage from the Everglades Club, which is in the same block where the woman parked her car. The footage showed the woman park her car and walk to Only Authentics.
Police said the security footage showed a man with long, dark hair open the Bentley's passenger door and take the brown bag about 13 minutes after the woman walked away.
The man appeared to work with another person to first scout the Bentley, then steal the bags and leave the island in a Jeep Cherokee, police said.
As officers investigated the stolen purses, they received a report of another burglary, which took place during the partial solar eclipse.
A couple told police that they parked their RV along South Ocean Boulevard to watch the eclipse. They locked the vehicle's doors but left open a skylight, police said.
When the couple returned to the RV, they found it in chaos, with things scattered across the floor, police said. The screen that covered the skylight was torn and hanging down, an arrest report stated. The couple also told police that there was sand that previously hadn't been on the front passenger seat.
When the couple went through the RV, they found many items missing, including their passports, a driver's license, a blue sling bag worth $800, a black Prada purse worth $1,000, several credit cards, two pairs of Christian Louboutin shoes, $1,300 in cash, the spare key for the RV, and checks and bank statements.
When Palm Beach police checked the town's license plate readers, they found that the same Jeep Cherokee involved in the April 3 incident had been on the island when the RV was broken into, the arrest report stated.
When that Jeep was later stopped on April 13 by Lauderhill Police officers, the man was taken into custody and admitted to his role in stealing the purses and breaking into the recreational vehicle, the arrest report stated.
The man was arrested by Palm Beach police on April 17 and taken to the Palm Beach County Jail, where he remains as of April 22 on a $40,000 bond as he faces charges of burglary to an unoccupied conveyance and grand theft, according to jail records.
Kristina Webb is a reporter for Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at kwebb@pbdailynews.com. Subscribe today to support our journalism.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Police: Man broke into RV during eclipse; took Chanel bags from Bentley
