MOUNT CARMEL - A Mount Carmel woman sustained a sprained hip and minor abrasions after being dragged several feet in a store parking lot during an attempted purse snatching Saturday afternoon.
Mount Carmel Borough Police Department is investigating the crime that occurred at approximately 4:30 p.m. at Dollar General located at 250 S. Market St.
The suspect is described by police as a white, non-Hispanic male, between 5 feet 10 inches to 6 feet tall, and between the ages of 25 and 35. He was wearing a black hoodie, black Pittsburgh Steelers T-shirt and blue jeans.
The suspect was in the store for several minutes and was observed exiting and loitering out front before the crime was committed. He was then observed trying to
take the purse of a 57-year-old woman, who was walking into the store.
The suspect drug the victim several feet in the parking lot before fleeing south on Market Street, where he was observed entering a silver Honda or Hyundai four-door sedan. The vehicle fled in an unknown direction.
"We recovered the purse from the victim and are going to run DNA off it," Mount Carmel Borough Police Chief Todd Owens said. "We are optimistic that we will get DNA off the purse."
Owens said after reviewing surveillance video from inside the store, police are looking to make contact with the operator and or passenger of a 1990s white Buick Century that was in front of the Dollar General at the time of the incident. The occupant or occupants of the vehicle are potential eye witnesses, he said.
Video footage of the suspect is also being sent to a lab in Philadelphia for enhancement.
"The biggest thing is the Pittsburgh Steelers T-shirt," Owens said. "Hopefully, someone noticed the shirt and may have seen the suspect's face."
Anyone who may have been in the Dollar General or Turkey Hill parking lot or who witnessed the incident is asked to call the Northumberland County 911 Center at 648-3868.
Additional photos of the suspect can be viewed on the police department's Facebook page at http://on.fb.me/13R8co0.
A woman's purse was stolen in a robbery in October at Boyer's Food Market just outside the borough line. In that case, the suspects knew that she had just cashed a $500 Lottery ticket.