CRAWFORD CO., Ill.—Remember this guy?
Well he’s been busted in Bloomington, Indiana.
This is allegedly David Panning, 41, of Bloomington, who’s currently being held in the Monroe County Jail in his hometown on a charge of Receiving Stolen Property. How that plays into the alleged theft from Robinson’s Walmart, which is from where the above photo was obtained, remains to be seen. The man in the photo had just allegedly swiped a LOT of cash from a register at the Robinson Walmart, this occurring last year, and was a suspect in other Walmart swipes.
Dude walking into Marshall Walmart on August 14
Whether he will end up being the suspect in the various thefts in the area last summer remains to be seen; press information only indicated that Panning is being charged in Montgomery and Hancock counties in Indiana, simply “for theft” and not specifically from Walmarts…however, it can be inferred that Panning is “the one” from two things: one is that the person who ultimately identified Panning from the many photos shot of him by surveillance cameras was a corporate executive of Walmart in Ohio, and that press information has Panning “allegedly committing the same type of theft in at least 23 other Walmart stores in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and Michigan.” Much speculation by Walmart employees last summer when all this was going on centered around the strong possibility that the perpetrator knew a certain register code or bore with him a certain key that enabled him to access unattended registers. It appears that speculation was right.
In Crawford County, information has been turned over to State’s Attorney Matt Hartrich in order to file charges against Panning dating back to the August 2013 heist there. Other counties affected in our coverage area included Carmi, Lawrenceville, Fairfield and Marshall; if and when charges are filed in any of those locations, we’ll post it….as well as what on earth it was that prompted Panning to (allegedly) come up with the idea and course of action in the first place, knowing how carefully store surveillance covers the registers.