One Bandit Thought to Have Cased Store Before Jewelry Heist

One of the four bandits who stole more than $1 million in gems from a South Coast Plaza jewelry store Tuesday night apparently had been in the store earlier that day and questioned an employee about several items of jewelry, police said.

“It does appear that the store may have been cased beforehand, which is not unusual in these cases,” according to Dan Hogue, Costa Mesa police detective.

Hogue said an employee of Slavick’s Jewelers reported seeing one of the men in the store at about 11 a.m. The man asked the employee about several expensive watches and left.

The man and three accomplices returned to the store just before closing time at 9 p.m. and engineered one of the largest Orange County jewel heists in recent memory, emptying three or four display cases of expensive Rolex watches, diamond rings and other items before calmly walking from the store and through the mall unnoticed.

Store Inventories Stock

Authorities Wednesday were still searching for the robbers--who were described as well-dressed black men in their 20s to 30s--while store employees, shielded Wednesday by a security screen and an armed guard, continued to inventory the remaining jewelry to determine what had been taken.

Police had initially reported the stolen jewelry was worth about $2 million but reduced their estimate Wednesday to “probably around $1 million.”

Witnesses said all four men carried handguns, but no one was injured during the heist. Although none of the men wore masks, witnesses could not describe the robbers in detail.

The four entered the store with guns drawn and ordered several customers to lie on the floor while the store manager unlocked display cases. Two customers who entered the store while the robbery was in progress were also ordered to lie down, Hogue said.

Police were puzzled Wednesday about how the armed men could have fled without being noticed. The store is about midway between Bullock’s and the Carousel Court on the first level of the shopping mall. Hogue said there was no immediate indication of what route the men took from the store or whether they fled in cars or on foot.

Apparently No Camera

There apparently was no surveillance camera or guard in the store, police said.

David Rhodes, district manager for the Slavick’s chain, declined to comment on what security procedures were in use.

A spokeswoman for South Coast Plaza said individual stores generally are responsible for their own security. “The decision to put in cameras or alarms and to hire armed security guards is up to the individual store,” said South Coast marketing director Maura Eggan.

Eggan declined to comment on overall mall security and whether it would be intensified in reaction to Tuesday’s robbery. “This is a matter between the store and the police at this point,” she said.

But several store owners interviewed Wednesday said mall security procedures could be improved.

“No one from the mall’s security department came in and said, ‘This is what happened’ or ‘This is what you should look for.’ I’ve been investigating the (robbery) myself,” said John J. Lozano, manager of Schaffer & Sons jewelers, as a repairman busily adjusted locks on display cases.

“We have a camera here.” he said. The robbers may have cased other stores besides Slavick’s, and, Lozano added, “we might have videotaped them, but no one has asked us about that,” he said.

Lozano and other jewelers said some type of bulletin should have been distributed to store managers Wednesday to explain the robbery and describe the suspects.

But Holly Rickman, manager of Anthony/Williams the Golden Bough, said such a robbery “is going to happen in any major shopping center with stores of this caliber so close to a major interstate.”

Rhodes, Slavick’s spokesman, declined to say whether the jewelry had been photographed or marked and might be traceable. But many knowledgeable in the field said the pieces are not likely to be recovered.

“They would likely be dismantled, especially if there were any antique, easily recognizable pieces,” said Mary Hammid, director of the jewelry department at Butterfield & Butterfield, a Los Angeles auction and appraisal house.

“The gold might be melted down and the diamonds pried from the setting. Some classic styles like a diamond solitaire don’t need to be dismantled because they are so commonplace. The problem is that on almost any block you have a store which advertises that it will buy second-hand jewelry and unscrupulous dealers who are willing to look the other way.”

Hammid said it was not likely that a store such as Slavick’s would photograph every piece of jewelry in its inventory. If the store put out a catalogue, perhaps 10% of the items might have been photographed, she said.

Even so, those items would still be very hard to trace. “If the robbers were professional and were working within an efficient network, the jewelry could be in a shop window in Cincinnati by Friday,” she said.

Times staff writer Mariann Hansen contributed to this story.