Woman faced jailtime for 20-year-old overdue VHS tape

Do you still have an old VHS cassette or DVD from the video rental store you never returned? It is better to take it back quickly, or you’ll end up like an American woman who discovered that the police are looking for her with a warrant for her arrest – 21 years after she failed to return a tape.

America’s KOKH 25 local TV station reported the weird and hilarious case of Caron McBride, who discovered in a shocking way that not taking your rental VHS back comes with consequences, even if it’s 21 years later. She’s a wanted woman and had been facing felony embezzlement charges over watching Sabrina the Teenage Witch two decades ago.

Caron McBride, 52, discovered that the police are looking for her with an outstanding warrant for her arrest for a video she rented in 1999 and never returned. She only discovered it after she went to have her driver’s licence changed after she got married.

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“I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I went to change my driver’s licence, during this Covid-thing you had to make an appointment, and so, I sent them an email, and they sent me an email, and they told me that I had an issue in Oklahoma and this was the reference number for me to call this number and I did.”

According to The New York Times, the video store where Caron rented the VHS cassette from, Movie Place, finally closed in 2008 over 13 years ago, so there isn’t even a place for her to return the tape.

The motor vehicle officials referred her to the district attorney’s office for Cleveland County, where a woman explained the charge against her. “She told me it was over the VHS tape, and I had to make her repeat it because I thought, ‘This is insane’. This girl is kidding me, right? She wasn’t kidding.”

Prosecutors have now dropped the charge against Caron in consideration of the “best interest of justice”.

Caron says she never even watched Sabrina the Teenage Witch. “I had lived with a young man, this was over 20 years ago. He had two kids – daughters that were 8, 10, or 11 years old – and I’m thinking he went and got it and didn’t take it back or something. I have never watched that show in my entire life, just not my cup of tea. Meanwhile, I’m a wanted felon for a VHS tape.”

Thinus Ferreira