Theft Suspect Accused Of Luring Victims Through Craigslist

Innocent Craigslist ads landed some people across the metro in the line of fire. It's a scheme designed to lure victims into parking lots and then put them face-to-face with a weapon.

“We heard a gunshot and we saw two guys scuffling,” Kelsey Watters said.

And the next thing she knew she was in the middle of a Craigslist sale gone bad and all she did was walk out of Wal-Mart.

“They took off, and we chased after them,” Watters said. “One of them was in a Monte Carlo.”

She wanted to get the number tag number.

“My initial reaction I guess,” Watters said. “It probably wasn't the smartest thing to do.”

But it certainly helped, because this wasn't the first time it happened. According to an arrest warrant, Tevin Cooper pulled the stunt two other times. He'd respond to a Craigslist listing for a game console and then meet the seller in a business parking lot and demand the game system.

The first alleged crime happened in a Best Buy parking lot where Cooper told the seller to give him the Xbox and in doing so pulled "an Uzi like sub-machine gun" on the victim and told him "the bullet was for him." During all this a female "took the Xbox and the victim's cell phone out of his vehicle."

The second alleged instance was just two days later at the Tinseltown movie theatre, and, once again, the warrant says Cooper "pulled a machine gun-type weapon and took the Xbox from the victim."

The next day the same scheme happened at a Wal-Mart. Another victim, who was trying to sell a PlayStation, met with a potential "buyer" in the parking lot. Cooper, along with a woman, pulled up with their trademark machine gun-looking weapon, but this time "the victim refused and was pistol whipped."

The warrant states "during the beating the suspect dropped the gun" which caused it to go off, and that's the shot Watters heard.

“We ended up coming across the victim again, and he had blood all over him,” Watters said. “I thought the guy was shot by looking at him. He had his 4-year-old son in the car. So I felt pretty bad for the little boy.”

In all three instances, Cooper was driving a Monte Carlo, and the tag number is how police were able to track him down and arrest him.