14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier this week, a couple in the US were taken into police custody after being found guilty of having stolen about a sledge worth of Christmas decorations from their neighbors.
What's interesting is that, contrary to what some might assume, the two Grinch wannabes did not steal the decorations looking to keep their neighbors from having a jolly holiday season.
In a nutshell, it appears that the reason they lifted the ornaments was that they wanted to decorate their own yard. Otherwise put, it was their eagerness to celebrate Christmas that got them in trouble with the law.
Not the best way to celebrate Christmas
It is understood that the would-be Grinches, identified as 18-year-old Jeremy Lewallen and his 42-year-old wife Carrie Carley (not a typo, this is their actual age), began stealing Christmas decorations some time before the debut of this year's holiday season.
Thus, the neighbors remember that, a while before Christmas, decorations started popping up in the couple's front yard in Colorado Springs seemingly out of the blue. At first, everybody assumed that the couple kept buying new ornaments.
One day, however, a neighbor could not help but notice that one of the decorations looked strikingly similar to an ornament that had been stolen from their property. Hence, they contacted authorities and alerted them about their suspicions.
When the police arrived at Jeremy Lewallen and Carrie Carley's home, the couple admitted to having stolen the decorations. Besides, the 18-year-old Grinch said that he wasn't in the least bit remorseful about it and that he could not care less about the families he took them from.
At first, Carrie Carley admitted to being an accomplice to these thefts. Later on, she changed her mind and tried to put the blame on her husband. Unfortunately for her, the police officers handling the case figured out that the woman was lying and arrested her together with her boo.
“Every morning he'd go out for a walk, at like 2 or 3, and then there was just more stuff in the yard,” 42-year-old woman said in a statement, as cited by Daily Mail. “I didn't know exactly where it all came from,” Carrie Carley went on to claim.
It is understood that, all in all, the married couple stole some $2,000 (roughly €1,640) worth of Christmas decorations from their neighbors and used the ornaments to pretty up their own yard.
Not their first brush with the law
Word has it that, just last year, Jeremy Lewallen was arrested for having stolen Halloween decorations from folks living in their neighborhood. For some reason, he failed to learn his lesson. Hence his decision to pull a similar stunt to celebrate this year's winter holiday season.
Police officers say that, after the thefts were discovered, the Christmas ornaments were returned to their rightful owners and 42-year-old Carrie Carley agreed to apologize to her and her husband's neighbors. She and Jeremy Lewallen are now facing felony charges and are bound to spend some time behind bars.
