REDDING, CA (KRCR/CNN) - A woman took matters into her own hands when her purse was stolen
Haley Hunter said she was inside her 5-year-old son's daycare for only a couple of minutes Tuesday and returned to a stranger in her car.
"He was still leaning in my car, like, grabbing things, and he had my purse and my backpack already, like slung over him. And then I was right here, and I was kind of yelling, 'Hey, that's my car,'" Hunter said.
She tried to grab her things from him while protecting her son.
"I was holding him back, trying to get my bag. It was, like, a split second. Then I thought, 'You know, he's more important. That stuff can go,'" Hunter said.
But for a single mom, material possessions can be important this time of year.
"It's getting close to the holidays, and I'm trying to save up for my son to get him the things that he needs," Hunter said. "I'm a server, so a lot of my income is in cash, which I left in my purse, I'm not going to lie. So it's kind of rough."
She wasn't going to give up, though, and her boyfriend was ready to help.
"He's just like, 'This is not going to happen to you. We are not going to let this happen to you," Hunter said.
While waiting for police, she tracked her iPhone, and her boyfriend and a friend went after it.
"They just went off and said, 'We'll find him and take care of it. We'll do it the right way until the cops get here and handle the rest.'"
While she tracked the phone, the suspect, 28-year-old Nicholas Williams, was allegedly helping her do so.
"The app only works while the phone is on. My phone was on like maybe 10 percent when this happened. I was like, 'I need to hurry up and figure out where they are,' and they were honestly charging my phone, and you could see it from the find my iPhone app."
Hunter's boyfriend confronted the thief in the Winco parking lot. He eventually got the phone back and some of her money.
Police were called and arrested Williams, who recently got out of jail for another crime and was on probation.
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