A Florida woman was arrested last week after she threatened multiple people with a gun, claiming that someone had stolen her cell phone.
But when Key West Police responded, they found the phone in plain sight on the floorboard beneath Gail Marie Stephenson’s feet, WPLG reported.
Police said they first got a call shortly after 10 p.m. Friday from a man about “a female in a white Ford Explorer who pulled up to (him) armed with a revolver claiming someone had stolen her phone.”
He told police Stephenson, 57, pulled up outside his house “blowing her vehicle’s horn repeatedly.” He said he came out with a flashlight to see if she needed help, but Stephenson “grabbed a revolver and pointed it at his chest.” Then, he said, she set the gun down and told him she had been robbed.
She pointed at a fence gate to a neighboring home and told the man that the person who “robbed her went in there.”
Stephenson told police that she had been at the American Legion hall “and gave a younger gentleman that she didn’t know a ride home.” He stole her phone, she said. But when she opened the SUV’s door, officers saw the phone at her feet. They also found a revolver case inside the vehicle.
Stephenson said that “her husband must have (the gun) with him in Georgia” and was “emphatic” that she wasn’t armed.
As they spoke with her, however, they received multiple calls “that a woman fitting Stephenson’s description had a revolver and was banging on people’s home(s) and threatening those residences, stating she had been robbed.”
That included the woman who lived in the house where Stephenson had pointed out the gate her “robber” had gone to. She said Stephenson “banged on her door a couple of times after entering from the United Street side of the property before exiting on the Ashby Street side of the property,” having gone onto the property through a closed gate.
The woman said she didn’t answer the door because she didn’t know the crazed woman.
Police found a loaded handgun on the property “inside a purple Crown Royal bag” that was “stashed behind a trash can.”
A police report said that Stephenson “smelled strongly” of alcohol and “admitted to having several drinks” that night.
Stephenson was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, armed trespassing, and evidence tampering and was booked into the Monroe County jail.
She was no longer listed in jail records Monday morning, however, and is set to be arraigned on October 10.
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[Featured image: Gail Marie Stephenson/Monroe County Sheriff’s Office]
