Janell Howard says she went to the Coos Bay Wal-Mart store on Aug. 24 to buy school supplies for her children. The former Coos Bay finance director planned to get groceries later, but when she got to the cash register with a loaded shopping cart, she realized there wasn’t time.

There were hungry children to be fed and her husband was coming back from a trip and needed to be picked up. So she asked the cashier to charge her for a couple gallons of milk and proceeded back into the store. On the way, she picked up some chicken and potatoes from the deli section to feed her hungry charges when they got home.

Having already been to the checkout counter, and thinking she had paid for the milk, Howard headed for the exit. Before she could get outside, an undercover employee stopped her and asked about the deli items.

She said her children had distracted her and offered to pay for the food.

When store employees refused her money, she gathered up the school supplies and other merchandise she previously bought, and left.

That’s what she told Coos Bay Police Chief Rodger Craddock and the Oregon State Police troopers assigned the case. All of the testimony is contained in public records provided by the Coos County District Attorney’s Office. Those records include investigation reports, audio tapes and video from the Coos Bay Wal-Mart store.

“It was my stupid mistake. Completely innocent, unintentional, but my stupid mistake,” Howard told Oregon State Police Sgt. Bill Fugate.

A mistake that cost her her job.

The city of Coos Bay put Howard on paid administrative leave following the incident.

OSP handled the investigation and concluded there was insufficient evidence to prove Howard planned to steal the items.

And after reviewing store surveillance tapes, an audio interview and police reports, Coos County District Attorney R. Paul Frasier decided Tuesday he wouldn’t press charges against Howard. He couldn’t prove that Howard had an intent to steal, he said in a press release.



Howard’s employer, the city of Coos Bay, was less forgiving. On Tuesday, before Frasier released his decision, she was fired (see related story).

Analyzing evidence

The evidence Frasier used to make his decision includes grainy images of Howard pushing a shopping cart around the Coos Bay store, three young children in tow. And for at least four minutes, the video shows a dark-haired, mustachioed man in a gray sweatshirt following her.

He is Mayo French, the Wal-Mart employee. He, too, was interviewed by police and his story is essentially the same as Howard’s except for two points. He said Howard placed bagged merchandise on top of the two gallons of milk she didn’t purchase.

And while Howard said she proceeded directly from the deli section to the milk aisle, French wrote in his Wal-Mart report that he saw Howard go to the paper goods aisle, where he “observed her conceal the deli items in a grocery bag.”

Howard told police she put the deli food into a bag to keep her children from grabbing at the potatoes. And she thought she had already paid for the milk.

The whole incident began around 4:30 p.m. Howard went to the checkout counter with her three youngest children. She had between $60 and $70 worth of items in her shopping cart, including a gallon of milk.

In an interview with Sgt. Fugate, she said she was planning to buy one gallon of milk to get her family through the night. Then, when she realized she wouldn’t have time to go grocery shopping later, she decided to get some more. She told police she asked the cashier to ring up two more gallons, but the extra milks weren’t added to the receipt.

After heading back into the grocery section to get the milk (and deli food), Howard was about to leave the store when French came up to her and asked if she had a couple of minutes. She told him no. She had her hands full with her kids. At that point, he identified himself and showed her his identification.

The records indicate they went over to the customer service area, where the deli items’ bar codes were scanned. Howard had not paid for them.

At this point, Howard realized the Wal-Mart employees thought she was trying to steal the items. She immediately offered to pay for them.

In his report, Craddock said Howard “attributed the failure to pay for the items to her inability to multitask when trying to care for her very active children.”

She said she told her cashier to charge her for two extra gallons of milk. When French went to confirm this with the cashier Howard described, the cashier didn’t remember such a request, according to French’s report.

Howard has not responded to repeated calls from The World since the August incident.