Passer-By’S Quick Action Leads To Arrests In Daylight Mugging Mother Jots License Number Of Suspect Car In Lincoln Heights

Thanks to a good Samaritan, Spokane police say they were able to capture a mugging suspect accused of injuring an elderly woman while stealing money from her last week. “I was just doing what I hope anyone would have done,” said Deborah, who asked that her last name not be used because of concerns for the safety of her family.

The robbery occurred Aug. 2 just before 3 p.m. in the Lincoln Heights Shopping Center. The victim, a 70-year-old woman, had just left Jo-Ann Fabrics and Crafts store when a man knocked her down on the pavement and stole her purse, according to the police.

Deborah, who was driving through the center’s parking lot with her two preschool-age boys, said she spotted a slight, gray-haired woman on the ground with an elderly man beside her pointing. Following the man’s finger, Deborah saw a lanky man with closely cropped hair wearing shorts and a ball cap run away with a purse in his hands.

She said she put two and two together and decided to follow him in her car.

“I was just mad, real mad that someone was taking advantage of a 70-year-old lady,” she said.

The man jumped into the passenger side of a dark, two-door car with the rear window smashed out. Because the car was parked front-end first, Deborah did not see the driver.

That’s when anger compelled her to react, she said. Without thinking, she tried to block the car with hers.

However, Deborah did not pull far enough up to the other car, and the driver was able to move through an empty parking space on the side to speed around her.

“Then I got scared,” she said. “I mean, what with my kids in the car and all. What if he had a gun?”

Luckily, the car simply drove away, but not before Deborah wrote down the Idaho license plate number.

She went back and asked store employees to call the police.

When police arrived, they found medics treating the 70-year-old woman, police spokesman Dick Cottam said.

The woman’s head hit the pavement during the fall, resulting in a cut above her left eye. She also injured her shoulder and arm.

She told police she was in a lot of pain, Cottam said.

Deborah gave police the car’s description, and officer Sue Mann soon spotted the car parked in a lot in the 5200 block of East Sprague. Mann watched the car, and when it began to leave she stopped the driver and his passenger, Cottam said.

The driver was identified as 39-year old Byron L. Grendahl, who told Mann he lived at 3116 E. 17th. The passenger was identified as 19-year-old Richard E. Nauditt, a transient.

Nauditt was identified as the suspect accused of assaulting the victim and taking her wallet. Cottam said Nauditt, who is 6-foot-3 and 185 pounds, had $25 in bills in his pocket, exactly the amount the victim told police had been in her wallet.

Both men were booked into jail on charges of first-degree robbery and possession of a controlled substance after officers found heroin in the car.

The victim was treated at a hospital and released that day.

Deborah said the woman called to thank her the next day.