POLK COUNTY, Fla. – A woman who allegedly made a habit of sneaking onto a Poinciana couple’s porch to steal cigarettes is now behind bars after she tried to outsmart a deputy with a series of fake names.
The Polk County Sheriff’s Office began investigating after a resident reported that a stranger had been repeatedly entering their screened-in lanai. According to investigators, the trespasser struck three separate times: once on February 17, again on March 11, and most recently on April 20.
In every instance, the homeowners were inside the house while the thefts occurred right outside their door.
The break in the case came when a deputy started canvassing the neighborhood to find leads. When he knocked on one particular door, the woman who answered didn’t just provide information—she confessed on the spot that she was the person he was looking for.
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However, the cooperation ended there. When the deputy asked for her identity, the woman reportedly gave him a fake name, followed by a second, and then a third.
At one point, she tried to simply walk away from the interview. The deputy used a portable fingerprint scanner to cut through the confusion, identifying the woman as 40-year-old Deidre Amaris Shoultz.
Shoultz eventually admitted to entering the lanai to take cigarettes, though she claimed it only happened once, despite evidence linking her to all three dates.
A background check revealed that Shoultz was already a wanted woman. She had an outstanding warrant in Osceola County for failing to appear in court for driving with a suspended license, and a felony warrant out of Broward County for violating pretrial services related to a charge of aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer.
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Shoultz was booked into the Polk County Jail on her existing warrants and now faces a fresh list of charges, including three counts of residential burglary, three counts of theft with a prior conviction, providing a false ID to law enforcement, and resisting an officer without violence.
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