OCEAN CITY — A Virginia couple was arrested last week for stealing a funeral home’s truck after a license plate reader on the Route 50 Bridge alerted resort police.
Around 2:15 a.m. last Friday, Ocean City Police Department (OCPD) officers patrolling in the downtown area got a ping from a license plate reader about a stolen Ford Ranger pickup truck from Virginia entering the resort.
Officers observed the vehicle traveling north on Baltimore Avenue as it drove through a red traffic signal, according to police reports. Officers conducted a high-risk traffic stop in the parking lot of a hotel at 15th Street and made contact with the driver, identified as Sean Martin, 35, of Winchester, Va., and his passenger, Kelsi Turner, 20, of Front Royal, Va.
Martin reportedly told police he had purchased the truck a week earlier in Pennsylvania from an individual he did not know through a social media marketplace site. Martin reportedly told police he paid $500 for the truck, but the seller did not have the title and he did not have a receipt with him. Martin told officers he “should have known better” than to buy a truck from a stranger for $500. Martin also told police he did not have a valid driver’s license and that he was a convicted felon from Virginia, according to police reports.
Officers interviewed Turner, who reportedly told police she had taken her father’s vehicle to pick up Martin and taken him to a farm in West Virginia, so he could buy a truck. Turner advised an individual gave Martin the keys to the truck, and that she had seen Martin sign a receipt, but she had never seen the actual receipt or any title to the vehicle.