Police aided by online database in stolen laptops case
October 19, 2007 | 6:32 p.m. CST
COLUMBIA — Investigating the theft of 16 computers from MU last week, university police used
information from an online pawn shop database to find their suspect, a former teaching assistant who
worked in the German and Russian Studies Department.
Police arrested Marina D. Somers, 27, who used to teach elementary German, after they received sales
data about three laptops from the database.
The database, LeadsOnline, is used by more than 3,000 pawn shops and 700 police departments
nationwide. It’s the most common pawn shop database in the South and Midwest, Columbia police
Detective Vance Pitman said. Pitman said pawn shop owners are now required to sign up for the
service to get their license.
“It’s really a great advance in us communicating with law enforcement,” said Brian Mayse, manager
of Family Pawn, 2416 Paris Road, where the three laptops were pawned.
Mayse said he suspected the laptops were stolen because they were identical and because they were
pawned over the course of three days. He contacted police, who visited his store last week. Police
identified a suspect after looking at video surveillance footage and driver’s license information in
the database.
Dan Trim, owner of Tiger Pawn, 1209 Business Loop 70 E., said another eight of the laptops were
pawned from his shop Sept. 27 to Oct. 9.
“The person had been doing this over the course of a couple of weeks,” Trim said. “She brought
one in, and then another and then another.”
Tiger Pawn also uses LeadsOnline to report its transactions. Five of the laptops have been recovered,
but the pawn shop sold the other three to customers who paid cash.
“We’re trying to figure out who we sold them to,” Trim said.
MU police Capt. Brian Weimer said LeadsOnline was used in the investigation, but he declined to
release other details about the case until it has progressed through the courts. He said that 10 of the
16 computers have been recovered and returned to the German department. The original number of
computers reported stolen was 14.
Dallas-based LeadsOnline started in 2000 and was the brainchild of a police officer who wanted an
easier way to track pawn shop sales data, company spokeswoman Stephanie Christiansen said.
“Before, officers had to travel from pawn shop to pawn shop” and collect individual pawn tickets,
Christiansen said. “Generally, they were months behind.”
Mayse said he has been using LeadsOnline for years and that every pawn shop is required to report
its transactions.
“All of our serial numbers, makes and models get transferred to the police on a daily basis,” Mayse said.
“They get this information from pawn shops all over the country.”
Under Missouri law, pawn shop owners who falsify transaction records or don’t comply with police
investigations of suspected stolen property could lose their license and face a $5,000 fine and six months
in jail.
Pitman, the Police Department’s main investigator in cases in which stolen property ends up in pawn shops,
said the police have subscribed to LeadsOnline since 2000, when it merged with PILET, a local database the
department used in the 1990s. The database contains all of the information that’s normally on a handwritten
pawn ticket, Christiansen said. Police can search by date range, region, suspect’s name or serial number if
that’s available. Even general descriptors can work, she said.
“They can type in ‘diamond ring’ and they’ll get stuff back,” Christiansen said.
Pitman said some of the database’s features make his job easier. He said he can save a query so that the
database will automatically perform the search daily and e-mail him if it gets a hit. The database is free for
pawn shops, but police must pay an annual subscription fee. Christiansen said the subscription cost varies
based on the size of the department and how much information it wants.
Pitman said that one drawback to the database is that criminals are starting to learn that police use the tool.
But, he said, stolen items still turn up at pawn shops, even months after the theft has occurred.
“On Tuesday we found an iPod that was stolen over a year ago,” he said. “If the public learns to record
their serial numbers, it would make it so much easier.”