Mother-daughter duo arrested for alleged Home Depot theft

Published 7:26 pm Tuesday, February 4, 2020

A Baton Rouge mother-daughter team is in jail in Louisiana after a Good Samaritan posted video of the two allegedly shoplifting at a Brookhaven home improvement store.

The Louisiana State Police’s Fugitive Task Force Tuesday arrested Joy R. Taylor and her daughter, Tyshericka Lashae Taylor, in a pre-dawn raid in Baton Rouge. Warrants had been issued for the pair by Brookhaven Police Department, said Chief Kenneth Collins.

The video provided to the police and posted Friday on the BPD Facebook page allegedly shows the two women and another person loading the back of a car with items from at least one full shopping cart.

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Collins said a Home Depot Organized Retail Crime team from Houston, Texas, is heading to Louisiana to assist Louisiana State Police in processing the evidence recovered that belongs to Home Depot.

The Taylors are in the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison.

“The duo also will answer to the state of Louisiana for felony drug charges and parole violations — stemming from the search warrant — before being extradited back to Mississippi,” he said.

In the 48-second video, the alleged thieves are seen haphazardly loading the trunk and the back seat with boxed items.

The black car does not have a license plate. The car dealership tag in its place lists a Baton Rouge phone number.

“We can’t get it all but we can get some of it,” one person said.

One of the individuals slams the trunk lid four times before finally closing it as someone else screams, “Leave it.”

One of the women, loading boxes in the back seat, warns the person recording the alleged theft with her cell phone.

“Can you get out of my face with that camera?” she said.

The Brookhaven Police Department credits the concerned citizen who captured the video of the incident and thanks the BPD investigators for the development of the information and the Louisiana task force for the execution of the warrants.

Collins said arrests in the case likely would not have been made without the video. However, Collins urged citizens to be careful and use precaution when attempting to photograph or record a crime in progress.