Woman loses brand-new phone at Saltgrass Steak House restroom, catches a 65yo allegedly walking out with it after she denied seeing it: ‘How sad’

A Texas woman reportedly recovered her brand-new smartphone after confronting an older woman who allegedly took it from a Saltgrass Steak House restroom. The woman allegedly denied having the creator’s phone moments earlier. However, she reportedly located the device after spotting its black case sticking out of the woman’s purse as she tried to leave the building.

Content creator @texasmoomoo4 shared the account in a TikTok video that has drawn thousands of views. She explained that while dining at a local Saltgrass Steak House with her mother and friends, she used the restroom, where she accidentally left her phone on the dispenser stall ledge.

The creator reportedly returned to the restroom roughly five minutes later. There, she saw an older woman leaving the same stall, who allegedly claimed she had not seen the device. However, after having restaurant staff review surveillance footage, the creator reportedly caught the same woman attempting to exit the front doors with the missing phone.

It prompted a search through the restaurant

In the video, the creator explained that she had owned the smartphone for only a week before the dinner outing. Before heading to the parking lot, she reportedly stopped in the restroom and placed her phone on top of the toilet paper holder to avoid dropping it.

“I go to the bathroom, I get out, I leave for like, I don’t know, five minutes,” she recalled. “And I realized, ‘My phone!’ I ran back in there. As I was, there was this little old lady coming out, 65-70-years old, something like that.” However, the woman allegedly denied having seen the creator’s phone in the stall. 

Stuck, the creator reportedly asked managers to review security cameras to verify who had entered the restroom during those five minutes. While employees checked the footage, the creator allegedly approached the woman a second time at her large family table. She claimed that she again asked her if she was positive she had not seen the device. The woman denied finding it again.

A phone call exposed the alleged phone thief at the exit

The situation reportedly resolved when the creator stepped outside, where her mother suggested calling the number directly. “She’s calling the phone, and as I go back in, the lady’s coming out the front of the door of the restaurant,” the creator claimed. “So, I made a U-turn, and I followed her out,” she said.

The U-turn reportedly turned out to be the right decision for the creator. She allegedly saw a little pocketbook on the old woman as she was leaving. “It was a shoulder purse, and it wasn’t no bigger than a wallet, and I saw this black case sticking out,” she claimed.

When confronted, the woman allegedly became defensive. “I said, ‘Ma’am, can I please see that phone right there?’ ‘No! That’s my phone!’” Despite the initial denial, the creator confirmed in the video’s comments that she successfully recovered her phone from the woman. Reflecting on the encounter in her caption, she wrote, “can’t even trust the elderly, how sad.” 

In criminology, finding and pocketing an unattended item is classified as “theft by finding” or an opportunistic property crime. Such a crime mostly, but not always, occurs without premeditation when the person finds valuable property left unguarded. 

On the other hand, the creator’s disappointment in how the old woman turned out to be a thief shows a common age-based stereotype. Research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology partially supports that people routinely judge elderly people as warmer and less capable of deceptive behavior compared to younger people.

This cognitive bias can sometimes create hesitation when confronting older people, even when physical evidence points in their direction. Thankfully, the creator took the chance and didn’t hesitate before calling the woman out when she found evidence of the alleged theft.

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