Nicole White
Indian River County Sheriff’s Office
A Vero Beach woman was reunited with her stolen cat after a stolen $1,200 Samsung television got tracked down, cops say.
According to a Vero Beach police report, Kayleigh Fee knew something was wrong on Oct. 3 when she didn’t hear the cat meowing upon her 9 p.m. return to the home she shared with a friend. As Fee looked for her kitty, she noticed her $1,200 Samsung smart TV also was missing.
Fee knew her roomie hadn’t let the cat out or swiped the Samsung — she was already in jail. From there, the roommate told cops she didn’t give anyone permission to come into the house.
Four days later, Fee found out her television had been pawned at Treasure Coast Music and Jewelers Pawn Shop. She also told police she found a jewelry box with craft jewelry and her cat also had been stolen.
At Treasure Coast Music and Jewelers, video, a pawn ticket and the thumb print the pawn ticket told Vero Beach detectives that the television had been pawned for $75 by Nicole White, 32. Also on the video, actually bringing the television into the pawn shop, was 32-year-old Martavus Owens, who detectives knew from “previous encounters.”
When detectives found Owens and White at their mobile home, Owens said he got the Samsung from a guy named Doug for $50. Owens said he just met Doug, didn’t know anything about Doug and he was just trying to turn a quick profit on a hot television. He claimed he didn’t know anything about a burglary, a stolen cat or jewelry box.
White, on the other hand, gave it up, according to the arrest report.
First, she tried to lie that Fee’s friend had called Owens from jail and told him to take what he wanted from her house. Cops said they already knew that didn’t happen. White went back into the mobile home and emerged with the jewelry box and the cat.
Police kept the jewelry box as evidence.
Owens remains in jail with $50,000 bond on charges of burglary, grand theft and dealing in stolen property. White has those same charges, plus giving false information to a pawn broker, but with only $40,000 bond.
Since 1989, David J. Neal’s domain at the Miami Herald has expanded to include writing about Panthers (NHL and FIU), Dolphins, old school animation, food safety, fraud, naughty lawyers, bad doctors and all manner of breaking news. He drinks coladas whole. He does not work Indianapolis 500 Race Day.