LAPEL, Ind. (AP) – A teenager arrested for shoplifting had filled her pockets with so many items that her pants dropped to her ankles as she tried to run out of the store, police said.

Cheyanne E. Dwiggins, 18, is accused of trying to steal candy, kitchen utensils and a box of strawberry Nestle’s Nesquik, among other items, from Bauer’s Market in Lapel, about 25 miles northeast of Indianapolis.

Dwiggins, who was arraigned Thursday on one count of theft, was being held Friday on $5,000 bond.

Store employees became suspicious on Wednesday when Dwiggins, who had been in the store about 30 minutes, walked to the cash register to pay for a 59-cent candy necklace, but only had 40 cents.

Store owner Scott Law had watched Dwiggins and knew she had pocketed several items, so he confronted her as she tried to leave, according to court papers.

Dwiggins tried to run from the store, but Law grabbed her coat from behind and held onto her until police arrived.

When Police Chief Dennis Molina pulled up, he saw Dwiggins’ bare behind as she tried to escape from Law and back out of the door, her weighted-down pants at her ankles, court records show.

Police also found a potato peeler, ice cream scoop, a set of measuring spoons, two cake decorating gel tubes and six Rollo candy bars on Dwiggins, according to court documents.

Law, who’s dealt with numerous other shoplifters in the four years he’s owned the store, called the arrest “very irritating.”

“Yesterday’s incident was just the icing on the cake,” he said.

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WESTMINSTER, Colo. (AP) – Santa must have a trick.

A man who was locked out of his house in this Denver suburb tried to get in by sliding down the chimney early Friday, but he got stuck and had to be rescued, authorities said.

The man, whose name wasn’t released, fell about 12 feet down the shaft. Authorities said he was hurt but did not elaborate on the nature and extent of his injuries.

He convinced authorities it was his home, and there was no evidence he was breaking in, city spokeswoman Jennifer Galli said. Police were present but made no arrests.

Firefighters rescued the man by lowering a ladder into the chimney and lifting him to safety, Galli said.

Emergency workers were summoned at about 3:20 a.m., but it wasn’t clear who called them.

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ENGLEWOOD, Pa. (AP) – A woman who hurled last year’s Christmas tree out in the yard when an opossum popped out, scaring her teenage daughter, said the family will stick with an artificial tree this year.

“My daughter’s still afraid she’ll look at the tree and see eyes looking back at her,” Patricia A. O’Connor said. Though her husband, Michael, would like a real tree, she said, “We thought we’d give it one more year.”

Daughter Mary Kathleen O’Connor was doing her homework by the tree a few days before Christmas 2005, when, she said at the time, “this head just popped up. … I was thinking, ‘Oh my God!’ And I screamed.”

The family came running, and called the state Game Commission. A wildlife conservation officer removed an 18-inch-long opossum and released it in the woods about five miles away.

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McMINNVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – A married woman stole items worth tens of thousands of dollars in a string of burglaries to make her boyfriend think she had a high-paying job, authorities said.

Nickey Davidson, 25, is charged with three counts of aggravated burglary and theft in a series of house burglaries that seem to have been used to finance a double life.

“She told her boyfriend in Coffee County that she had a high-paying job, so all these crimes were committed in trying to keep up with the lie she told him,” Warren County Sheriff’s Department Capt. Tommy Myers said.

“When we told her boyfriend about what had happened, he was shocked. He was even more shocked to find out she is still married,” he said.

Myers said the thefts involved items that would not immediately be detected as missing, such as checks from the back of a checkbook or guns from a large collection.

In the last burglary, $15,000 worth of jewelry was stolen from a home, though thousands of dollars worth of jewelry sitting in plain sight was left behind.

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