Clayton man facing theft charge in Walmart incident

A 37-year-old Hendricks County man, whose criminal history already reportedly sports several prior convictions for theft and forgery, found himself back in familiar territory Monday afternoon in Putnam County.

Shawn A. Todd of Clayton made his initial appearance in front of Putnam Superior Court Judge Denny Bridges on a Level 6 felony charge of theft, punishable by 6-30 months in the Indiana Department of Correction.

And it was the judge who noted the defendant’s propensity for getting caught and enduring theft charges and their consequences.

“If I were you, I’d pick up a different hobby,” Judge Bridges told Todd, alluding to the defendant’s theft involvement. “You’re not very good at this one.”

A not-guilty plea was entered for Todd in his latest case, which stems from an Aug. 8 incident at the Greencastle Walmart in which Todd allegedly stole a Bostitch mechanics tool set, valued at $158.36.

Some good police work coupled with a little too much social media information led to the arrest of Todd, who up until Jan. 19 had been serving time as a result of a plea deal in a Hendricks County theft case.

According to Walmart Asset Protection personnel, Todd walked out of the store with a 205-piece tool set about 9:50 a.m. Aug. 8 after placing the item into a shopping cart and rolling it up front to the customer service area. There video shows he casually waited a couple of minutes and then pushed it out the exit to his burgundy/maroon-colored car.

Photographs made from the store video were good enough to capture the car’s license plate number, which returned to a Clayton woman with whom Todd shared an address.

That’s where Greencastle Police Officer Brad Hiatt turned to social media to help find the suspect. He spotted a man matching Todd’s description -- bald with a goatee -- in photos on the Clayton woman’s Facebook page.

Armed with Todd’s name, Hiatt then turned to the suspect’s Facebook page and found an older post in which Todd talked about getting a new car -- a burgundy/maroon-colored Chevrolet Impala sedan. Closer examination showed a partial plate number that matched the plate number identifiable from the Walmart surveillance photo.

Entering Todd’s name in the IDACS system through the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, Officer Hiatt was able to verify the address and the vehicle and substantiate Todd was indeed the suspect he sought.

“A criminal history on Todd revealed multiple arrests/charges for such things as conspiracy to commit robbery, theft, forgery and vehicle theft,” Hiatt noted in the probable cause affidavit on file in the case.

After Monday’s court appearance, Todd was ordered held at the Putnam County Jail on $3,000 cash bond. Trudy Selvia was appointed as his legal counsel in the case, which has a pretrial conference scheduled as its next hearing at 10 a.m. April 12.