Thief has robbed 16 phone stores since April

A serial phone store thief has been robbing phone stores all over North Texas since April.

From mid-April to mid-July, Cedar Hill Police Lt. Collin Chennault said a man has robbed 16 cell phone stores, including ones in McKinney, Waco, Lewisville, Flower Mound, Dallas, Fort Worth and Cedar Hill. He has mostly robbed Sprint stores and only wants one item.

“He’s only taking iPhones,” Chennault said. “He's not taking other brands. He's taking only Apple iPhones.”

The suspect has taken more than $24,000 in phones. He uses the same method in each robbery.

“He's using wire cutters,” Chennault said. “We know that whatever he's using, he’s cutting security cables very quickly because he is in and out of stores very quickly."

Surveillance video shows the suspect taken three phones from one store in seven seconds. He also has a unique posture caught on camera more than once.

“He has a very distinct posture, with his left hand behind his back and holding on the elbow area of his right hand,” Chennault said. “We've seen that in a couple of the different films."

Since he likes to target Sprint, investigators are using the former Verizon "test man" spokesman from old commercials who recently switched to Sprint for help in finding the suspect. The test man’s famous line in the old Verizon commercials was, “Can you hear me now?”      

“With the ‘Can you hear me now’ guy, on our last Facebook post, we coined the phrase "Do you know me now?" Chennault said. “So we're hoping that somebody does know him now and will help us find out who this guy is.”