X-ray in theft proves revealing

A 32-year-old woman described by a prosecutor as a "Southern belle" with a history of theft has pleaded guilty to stealing a $4,000 diamond ring and trying to hide the evidence by swallowing it.

In the plea bargain to charges of burglary and grand larceny, Lori Carroll will face the possibility of eight to 20 years in prison, but Deputy District Attorney Scott Mitchell agreed he will not ask that she be treated as a habitual criminal.

That could have put her in prison for life.

Mitchell said Carroll already has five felony convictions in Georgia and has used a string of aliases. He said he would emphasize those issues when the woman is sentenced March 21 by District Judge Donald Mosley.

Carroll admitted she went into M.J. Christensen Jewelers in the Forum Shops at Caesars Nov. 8. A clerk handed her the ring so she could look at it, but a moment later the ring disappeared.

Carroll denied she ever had the ring and Metro Police were not able to find the ring upon conducting a body search. Officers then suspected the ring was inside her, and after obtaining a search warrant, took her to University Medical Center for an X-ray after.

The X-ray revealed the ring.

Ten days later she passed the ring at the Clark County Detention Center, according to Metro Police spokesman Lt. Mark Joseph.

"We went down and identified the ring. It still had our price tag on it," jewelry store manager Stuart Anderson said after the ring was recovered. "She swallowed the tag and everything."

But the saga didn't end there.

Deputy Public Defender Kristen Lynch then said that Carroll was pregnant at the time of the X-ray and complained that the county jail did not provide her with any testing to determine if there were any adverse effects on the fetus from the X-ray.