Thieves Hit Posh Boutique a Third Time : Police Jail Suspect, Hunt for a Second

William Lee Wallace and a friend apparently liked to spend unusual hours at a posh Corona del Mar boutique, police said.

Early Thursday morning, they paid what police believe was the pair’s third visit to the shop in little more than a week. Then, police said, the two led officers on a 95-m.p.h. chase down Jamboree Road that ended in Tustin, when their car crashed through a cyclone fence and into a ditch at the Marine Corps Air Station.

Inside the car, officers said, they found $18,000 worth of cocktail dresses, sequined evening gowns and other expensive designer clothing.

“The car was literally stuffed full,” Newport Beach Police Officer Kent Stoddard said.

Second Suspect Sought

Wallace, 37, an Anaheim resident, was booked into Newport Beach City Jail on suspicion of commercial burglary. Police are looking for a second suspect in the 3:46 a.m. burglary.

When police called Sandy Lavoy at 4:30 a.m., she couldn’t believe it. Lavoy manages the Estelle Allardale shop in Corona del Mar along with her sister, Cindy Higgins.

“Why is this happening to us every time?” she said. “It was a nightmare. I couldn’t believe it happened again.”

The clothing store had just been burglarized for the third time in nine days. In 25 years of business, the store had never previously been burglarized, Lavoy said.

Neighbors Heard Noise

Newport Beach police believe that Wallace and an accomplice are responsible for all three June burglaries, according to Sgt. Patrick O’Sullivan.

The latest started with the sound of breaking glass early Thursday morning. Neighbors living across an alley behind the store heard the shop’s rear glass door break and called police, Stoddard said.

The neighbors told police they saw two men emerging from the shattered door into the alley, carrying armloads of clothing to a parked car, its doors and trunk open. After two trips into the store, the men drove away--their car trunk flapping wide open.

Sgt. Howard Eisenberg heard the description over his patrol car radio and saw “a similar vehicle with trunk open” northbound on Jamboree Road near San Joaquin Hills Road traveling about 95 m.p.h., Stoddard said. Eisenberg began the pursuit.

Fence Smashed Down

Racing down Jamboree Road, the suspect’s car roared through the T-intersection where Jamboree dead-ends at Barranca Parkway on the Tustin-Irvine city lines, smashing down a cyclone fence and crashing into a ditch at the Marine station, Stoddard said.

The two men inside bolted from the car, disappearing into the early morning darkness. A search began, involving about 25 officers from Newport Beach, Santa Ana, Irvine and Tustin, as well as sheriff’s deputies, military police officers and three dog teams, Stoddard said.

At about 6 a.m., officers saw a shirtless man running across the base’s grounds. After a short chase, military police arrested Wallace near a hangar, Stoddard said.

After store manager Lavoy got over the scare of a third burglary and learned that a suspect had been arrested, she said she mostly worried about the clothes and her mother.

Had Her Dresses Back

“Three times in a week can completely clean out your store stock,” she said. By opening time at 10:30 a.m., she had her 80-odd stolen dresses back from the police and on the racks, including an $1,100 Gill Richards gown.

Lavoy’s mother, Ona McCallen, 57, who owns the boutique, had flown to Hong Kong the day of the first burglary, the only vacation her mother has ever taken, Lavoy said.

Two more burglaries might have been too much for her, Lavoy said: “I’m glad she’s not here. She’d be worried sick.”