New court dates set for 2 accused in Walmart thefts

A couple accused of shoplifting items from area Walmarts and selling them on the Internet had two different court dates set.

Kerri Neal has a new trial date of Jan. 12 set while her husband, Troy Neal, had his case continued until Dec. 18 by Circuit Court Judge Lee Russell.

Both have been charged with two counts of theft of property between $500 - $1,000, theft under $500, and theft between $1,000 and $10,000, which is a felony.

The pair are accused of lifting thousands of dollars worth of weight loss and make-up items from the shelves of several area Walmarts and selling them on the popular Internet auction site eBay.

Cooperation between Shelbyville and Tullahoma investigators resulted in the arrest of the couple, who were allegedly stealing Alli weight loss products and Olay make-up from the shelves of the Shelbyville, Tullahoma and Manchester Walmarts, as well as others in the region.

According to Detective Sgt. Brian Crews of the Shelbyville Police Department the pair, who allegedly confessed to the thefts following their arrests, would go to the Walmart stores between 11 p.m. and 4 a.m. to steal the products.

After receiving information from Tullahoma police, Crews checked the eBay site and narrowed his search to within 10 miles of Shelbyville to see if the couple were selling the stolen products online.

Crews found an eBay user named "sweet-sassy-2" and Detective Charles Merlo also checked MySpace and found that Kerri Neal was using the same user name. Photos on Kerri's MySpace page were also compared to video surveillance of the Walmart thefts, which Crews' report said confirmed their suspicion that the Neals were involved.

Close to 60 bottles of the weight loss drug were recovered when the pair was arrested and some of the items had already been sold on eBay.

Kerri faces related charges in other counties as well. She is represented by Murfreesboro attorney Will Fraley while Troy is represented by Bedford County's public defender's office.