Mother, Daughter Chase, Help Catch Theft Suspect

Last December, when Sherry Marshall heard a woman yell for help and saw a man running with a purse, memories of when she was a crime victim came rushing back.

Marshall watched as the screaming woman picked herself up after being thrown to the pavement. She stared in disbelief at the man running across the Sullivan Square parking lot with the woman’s purse.

“I said, ‘Crystal, that guy just took that lady’s purse,”’ said Marshall, who was easing her car out of a parking spot after Christmas shopping with her 12-year-old daughter and 2-month-old son.

In his haste to get away, the thief raced in front of Marshall’s tan Ford Tempo and ran down Sprague Avenue.

The night three years ago when a man lurked in Marshall’s back yard and forced his way into her home was playing in her mind. She was frightened by the memory, but also angered.

After hesitating briefly, Marshall’s frustration with crime and her daughter’s prodding won out.

“I was like, ‘Go! Go! Go!’,” Crystal said.

The chase was on.

Marshall and her children followed the thief while he ran through yards and jumped over fences along Progress Road. Sherry and Crystal yelled at the thief to stop and drop the purse.

At Second Avenue, the thief took the money from the bag and discarded the bag in a yard. About the same time, thinking no one was watching, the thief took off his baseball cap.

“He took off his hat and all of this hair came out,” Sherry Marshall said.

Just then, the thief realized he was being watched.

“That’s when he jumped in the bushes and stayed there, probably hoping we’d leave,” Sherry Marshall said.

Meanwhile, Crystal took her brother to a neighborhood house and called 911.

While her daughter was calling deputies, Marshall continued to chase the thief. She followed him to a car waiting in the 15100 block of East Fourth and quickly jotted down the license plate number.

When the woman waiting in the car drove off with the thief, she continued to follow them. She ended her pursuit when the car sped past Adams Elementary School.

“That’s when I thought, ‘No, I’m not going to follow them anymore. They’re going to kill somebody.”’

Marshall turned her car around, picked up her children and drove back to the Sullivan Square parking lot to wait for deputies.

There, she provided them with descriptions of the man, the woman and the car - including the license plate number - which ultimately led to the arrest of Scott Goode. Goode was charged with first-degree robbery and has pleaded not guilty.

For their efforts, Sherry and Crystal will receive Concerned Citizen Awards this week from the Sheriff’s Department, said Lt. David Wiyrick.

“They made the case basically,” Wiyrick said.

Sherry Marshall shrugs of her heroics.

“There were a lot of people looking for him,” she said.

Sherry and Crystal have both been subpoenaed as witnesses in Goode’s trial, which starts Monday. Crystal, an East Valley Middle School seventh-grader who would like to become a police officer, hopes she gets the chance to testify.

Deep down, Sherry Marshall does too.

“You just get to the point where you get so fed up with (criminals) that you want them to suffer the consequences,” she said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo

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