UNIVERSAL CITY, Texas -- Authorities today waited for Missouri to begin extradition proceedings against a woman suspected of enticing traveling businessmen into their motel rooms, slipping them knockout drops and robbing them.
The woman, Jacqueline L. Edmonds, was being investigated by a dozen police departments in convention cities nationwide for any ties to Mickey Finn robberies in those cities, police said.
Edmonds, 27, was arrested Monday at her 'upper middle class home' in Universal City, located just northeast of San Antonio, Universal City police Lt. Chuck Dewey said Tuesday.
She was charged with felony theft on an arrest warrant issued two weeks ago in St. Louis in a case in which a businessman reported $5,000 in cash and jewelry stolen.
Dewey said officers had tailed Edmonds' movements in numerous other cases and placed her in locations at the time several cases were reported. Police also found a detailed convention schedule in Edmonds' home.
Edmonds' bail was set at $7,500, but she was being held in the Bexar County jail in San Antonio in lieu of bond pending extradition to Missouri, Dewey said.
St. Louis County police said Edmonds was charged in Edmundson, a tiny St. Louis suburb that encompasses most of the airport hotels.
A police spokesman said Missouri authorities are waiting for Edmonds to decide whether to waive or fight extradition. If she agrees to be extradited, he said, then Missouri officers will pick her up within 10 days. Otherwise, he said, court proceedings could take up to three months.
Police are investigating Edmonds in Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio, Atlanta, Detroit, New Orleans, Denver, San Francisco, Albuquerque, N.M., Phoenix, Salt Lake City and Nashville, Tenn.
'A lot of the victims are married or embarrassed, so a lot of these crimes go unreported,' Dewey said. 'Some of them are coming forward now.'
One victim failed to make a police report because he was married, but his attorney contacted authorities Tuesday in one San Antonio case, Dewey said.
Edmonds, who is single, was described by her neighbors as quiet and seldom seen, Dewey said, adding, 'If you dress her up she'd look fairly attractive.'
Edmonds' arrest in Dallas was based on a complaint from William D. Phelps, travel director for the Dallas Cowboys. Phelps told police he met a woman at a nightclub, that his drink was spiked and he passed out.
Phelps reported about $2,000 in cash and jewelry, along with seven credit cards stolen.
In the Tennessee cases, two businessmen were robbed of more than $12,000 in cash and jewelry at a Nashville hotel, Dewey said.
Edmonds, who was arrested in the Dallas suburb of Flower Mound in February and charged with felony theft, had been freed on bond and was awaiting trial in that case, Dewey said.
