JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A menu of Mii's helped a local family get their stolen Nintendo Wii back.
Someone broke into Meg Witherspoon's home in late May.
"Where the dead bolt was, all the wood was kind of splattered on the floor," Witherspoon said.
A day after the burglary, police say Latrina Shepard pawned a 19-inch television to a Cash America Pawn on Beach Boulevard. Two days after the break-in, police say Shepard pawned a Nintendo Wii system to a Cash America Pawn on Atlantic Bouelevard. In both transactions, police say Shepard claimed ownership of the items.
Late last month, police matched the serial number on the television to the pawn shop transaction. Detectives followed the trail of stolen property to the second pawn shop that bought the Nintendo Wii.
The game system didn't have a serial number, but police found several obvious clues that the Nintendo Wii didn't belong to Shepard. The Wii had a list of digital characters, or Mii's, that looked like the family whose house was burglarized. The family's friends had also created characters on the Wii system, according to police.
"Apparently, the individual that pawned our tv also pawned a Wii. We didn't have a number for the Wii although they were able to identify it from the Mii's...which are the characters on the Wii," Witherspoon said.
Once confronted with the evidence, Shepard admitted to pawning the property. However, she told police she didn't know the items were stolen. Shepard said she pawned the items for a friend who needed the money to get back to Orlando.
Shepard has been charged with giving false verification of ownership of pawned items, a third-degree felony.
