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Oct 13, 2008 3:59 pm US/Central
Thieves Steal From Pastor During Church Service
FORT WORTH (CBS 11 News) ―
A Fort Worth pastor, who was preaching on helping the needy Sunday, was ripped off during the church sermon.
The staff at the Fort Worth Presbyterian Church thinks a pair of "wolves" blended in with all the "sheep" and sneaked into a back office over the weekend.
Reverend Rob Hamby, a campus minister at Texas Christian University, was the visiting pastor at Fort Worth Presbyterian on Sunday. He put his briefcase inside the senior pastor's office. "Before I left to go to the sanctuary I left my bag on the floor," Hamby explained.
The thieves stole the briefcase while he was in the chapel and now the pastor wants justice.
It wasn't until after the service that Hamby discovered his briefcase, with everything in it, was gone.
Hamby says he believes in helping those less fortunate - when they ask. "The thing that saddens me is that rather than come to the church and meet face to face about providing for a need that they… they would steal from somebody," he said.
It didn't take long for the pair to treat themselves to a shopping spree using the pastor's credit cards, racking up thousands of dollars in charges.
Hamby tracked the thieves first to a RaceTrac gas station at 10:55 am, then to a Lowe's Home Improvement store near Ridgmar Mall at 12:09 pm, a JC Penney's at 12:31 pm and a few other Ridgmar Mall stores later in the afternoon.
Hamby says workers at the RaceTrac and a Foot Locker store asked to see a driver's license when the credit card was presented and the crook showed the pastor's license.
"It bothers me they would bother to ask for identification and not check to see that that really was the person in front of them," Hamby said.
Hamby took action himself and obtained surveillance pictures from one of the stores where the stolen credit cards were used and gave the pictures to CBS 11 News.
"[I'm] not angry at the Fort Worth Police Department, but even when we let them know we have video, at a number of different stores, they haven't responded back to me with a detective," Hamby said with frustration.
Apparently the thieves also felt they needed a little bling, purchasing a $676 diamond from a department store.
In all, Hamby is out more than $7,600 – some $2,000 from the shopping spree, $3,000 in reimbursement receipts and $2,600 for his laptop, which was inside the briefcase.
Hamby and another church staff member say they have never seen the couple in the surveillance photos before.
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