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Woman Nails Her Own Identity Thief

by Jordan Yerman | June 15, 2007 at 12:35 pm

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Street justice: a San Francisco woman chased down and apprehended the thief who stole her identity.
Karen Lodrick had been thourgh a heinous six-month ordeal with banks, business and credit agencies after having her identity stolen. She had recieved a call from her bank, informing her that her ID had been left there, although she had never visited that branch before. Lodrick staked out the bank the next morning, spotting a woman wearing the same jacket that had appeared in a CCTV image of an unidentified woman using her bank card previously; the perp, it turns out, is a serial fraudster.

Lodrick's heart was pounding. Despite the expensive coat, the Prada bag, the glitter-frame Gucci glasses, there was something not right about the impostor she would later learn was named Maria Nelson.

"She had bad teeth and looked like she hadn't bathed," the onetime standup comic recalled recently. "I thought, 'You're buying Prada on my dime. Go get your teeth fixed.' "

When Nelson got up to leave, Lodrick, who is 5 feet 2 and 110 pounds but comes from what she calls "a fighting family," made an instant decision. First she called 911. Then she followed Nelson down Market Street.

The foot chase was on.

After cornering the doppelganger, Lodrick was asked to join the SFPD; as far as I'm concerned, she should be the next Linda Hamilton.

Best news story I've seen all day. This is way better than The One.

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