2 women arrested after multi-city crime spree after using elderly woman's credit cards, police say

LANTANA, Fla. - A few days after they met at a detox center, two women were arrested together after police said they stole another woman's purse and used her credit card to buy drills from Home Depot in Boynton Beach.

Chelsea Garber, 25, of Boynton Beach, and Carissa Harding, 24, of Delray Beach, were both arrested by Lantana Police late Monday night on two counts of larceny and four counts of fraud.

Harding was also arrested on charges of possession of drug equipment and possession of cocaine.

Earlier in the day Monday, Garber and Harding allegedly stole a 69-year-old woman's purse while she was putting groceries into her car after shopping at Winn-Dixie on South Dixie Highway in West Palm Beach.

In the woman's purse was $250, a Florida driver's license, a green card, two debit cards and a credit card, according to a Lantana Police Department report.

Police found that later that afternoon, the two woman charged $57.68 at a gas station and made two transactions at a Boynton Beach Home Depot for $210.94 each.

Boynton Beach police officers went to the Home Depot to investigate. There, witnesses told them they saw the two women purchased two Dewalt 18 volt drills.

When the cashier asked about the name on the card, Harding said that it was Garber's mother's card.

They told the cashier they would go to their car to get more identification but ended up fleeing the scene, the Lantana Police report says.

While driving to the Home Depot, a Boynton Beach police officer recognized the green Toyota Solara that the women were said to be driving and pulled it over.

After questioning of the two, Harding told police she had drug needles in her car.

And in the glove compartment, officers found three needles wrapped in toilet paper and a pouch with two plastic spoons - one with cocaine caked onto it, the report says.

The women were taken to the Boynton Beach Police Department, where they told police they met a few days earlier at the Drug Abuse Foundation in Delray Beach, and spent $1,500 of Garber's disability check over the weekend to buy cocaine and roxycodone, the report says.

The two women drove to Lantana to try to pawn a GPS and a pair of sunglasses, but when they failed to do that they went to Winn-Dixie to steal the 69-year-old woman's purse.