Fayetteville Jewelers Hit by Recent Robberies

Two jewelry stores in the Northwest Arkansas Mall were robbed at about 4 a.m. on May 27. The robberies were similar to about 10 others in that have occurred recently in Oklahoma, Texas, Tennessee and Missouri, leading police to believe the same thieves may be involved.

Burglars broke through a glass door to get into the mall and broke the plate glass windows in front of Gordon’s Jewelers and Blakeman’s Fine Jewelry, said Fayetteville police Lt. Greg Tabor. An alarm sounded when the jewelry store windows were broken, so the thieves had to work quickly, he said. Tabor said the fact that the stores are located in different parts of the mall leads police to believe more than one person was involved.

“Some went left, and some went right,” he said.

Tabor said at least $100,000 worth of jewelry is missing from the two stores. Don Blakeman said the loss at his jewelry store was minimal.

“Our [loss] was nowhere near that,” Blakeman said. “We’ve got everything in the safe. It was minimal. It was an inconvenience.”

The FBI is involved in the investigation since it appears to involve robberies in several states.

Blakeman has owned and operated the mall store for the past 15 years. Gordon’s is owned by Zale Corp., which also owns some 700 Zales Jewelers stores in the United States and Puerto Rico. Although sales were up for the quarter ended April 30, Zale said profit fell 66 percent to $3.5 million.