A woman accused of burglary and kidnapping was arrested Sunday after one of her victims saw on a Facebook update that the suspect would be at a Phoenix restaurant.
Brandi Lynn Rogers, 37, was arrested Sunday and charged with armed robbery, burglary and kidnapping. One of her accomplices led police right to her by revealing on Facebook which restaurant she'd be dining at that day.
On June 28, Rogers and three other accomplices had robbed two of her friends at gunpoint.
Rogers and a male acquaintance had been hanging out at the home of two of her friends, Amanda and Jeffrey Carlson, during the early hours of that morning, records say.
Rogers and her friend, who identified himself as Dave Harrington on Facebook, excused themselves from the Carlsons' home to smoke a cigarette. Upon re-entry, Rogers returned with Harrington and two other men armed with weapons. Harrington and one man carried handguns while the other man wielded a knife, records state.
Harrington allegedly struck Amanda Carlson in the chest. When Jeffrey Carlson moved to check on her, Harrington pistol-whipped him in the face, police say. He was later treated for a facial fracture at the hospital. The group of burglars proceeded to steal several of the couple's belongings, including two laptops and several prescription pill bottles, records state
The Carlsons didn't alert authorities of the robbery until two days after the incident because, they told police, they feared retaliation.
Police weren't able to nab Rogers until Amanda Carlson scrolled through her friend's Facebook profile and discovered Dave Harrington's page. She saw that Harrington had posted a status update indicating that Rogers would be at a restaurant located in a strip mall at 8039 N 35th Avenue on Sunday.
The police found Rogers at the restaurant with another man named Kenneth John Waslyn, whom the Carlsons are also acquainted with and is apparently the father of Rogers's two children. Waslyn admitted to police that he was waiting outside of the Carlsons's place while they were robbed.
Waslyn reportedly told police the robbery took place because the Carlsons gave him bad pills that contained Oxycontin -- and, as result, caused him to suffer from a potentially fatal skin condition called Steve Johnson Syndrome.
He told police that the Carlsons were lucky "he did not go inside and shoot them," records say.
