SHREWSBURY โ On Thursday, May 28, 2026, at approximately 10:07 a.m., Officer Eric Sloan of the Shrewsbury Police Department responded to the Petco at 50 Boston Turnpike to take a report that a customer had passed counterfeit money during a transaction.
(The account and quotations in this article were sourced from the printed Statement of Facts of Officer Eric Sloan and do not reflect any political perspective or personal opinion of News Link Live, which is strictly a business entity.)
When Officer Sloan arrived on scene, he met with the reporting party, Kaitlyn, who was the manager on duty.
โ[Kaitlyn] reported that a female party had made a purchase the day prior at 11:08 a.m. using $220 of counterfeit cash,โ Officer Sloan said. โThe cash was 16 $10 bills and three $20 bills that had the words โmotion picture use onlyโ on them.โ
Officer Sloan said that when Kaitlyn showed him the surveillance footage of the woman using the counterfeit cash, he immediately recognized the suspect as Keyana Owens.
According to police, Keyana T. Owens, 33, is a resident of Worcester, MA.
Officer Sloan said he and the Shrewsbury Police Department had previously interacted with Owens and had taken reports for prior shoplifting incidents at Price Chopper within the last month. He added that Owens was also arrested within the last week for shoplifting from Whole Foods. As for the Petco incident, Officer Sloan said Owens used the counterfeit cash to purchase $220 worth of goldfish and a terrarium and then left the store.
Officer Sloan said he went to Owensโ residence in Worcester in order to speak with her.
โWhen Ms. Owens answered the door, she was wearing the same camouflage sweatshirt that she was wearing in the CCTV [closed-circuit television] footage at Petco,โ Officer Sloan said. Adding, โMs. Owens was read her Miranda rights and confirmed that she was at Petัo and wearing gray leggings and the camouflage sweatshirt when she went into the store. As a result, Ms. Owens was taken into custody.โ
Keyana Owens, 33, of Worcester, was arrested and charged with the following:
- Obtain Goods by False Pretense of Trade
- Utter Counterfeit Note
- Possess Counterfeit Note
According to the court docket for the incident, Owens was transported to Chicopee as a โsafe keepโ following her arrest. (Although the docket did not identify the specific facility, the entry likely referred to the Western Massachusetts Regional Womenโs Correctional Center in Chicopee.)
On May 29, 2026, the docket said Owens was an inpatient at Baystate Medical Center with Chicopee correctional officers present and that she was unresponsive at the hospital.
Owensโ arraignment, which was initially scheduled for the day following her arrest on Friday, May 29, 2026, was rescheduled to June 1, 2026 in Westborough District Court. In addition to rescheduling her arraignment date, on May 29, the judge set her bail at $500 cash.
Owens was transported from Chicopee to her arraignment on June 1, after which she was released on personal recognizance under the condition that she stay away from Whole Foods and Petco.
Owensโ next court date is a pretrial hearing scheduled for August 4, 2026.
Disclaimer: If you are wondering why the incident in this story took place in May, thatโs because I had to file FOIA request(s) to obtain the court documents. FOIAs are time-consuming.
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