Jaythan Gilder, 32, posed as an assistant for an Orlando Magic basketball player and asked to see a diamond ring and diamond earrings at a Tiffany & Co store in Florida before stealing the diamonds
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The stolen earrings showed up when the suspect was body scanned in jail
The stolen earrings showed up when the suspect was body scanned in jail(Image: Ninth Judicial Circuit Court in and for Orange County)
Four diamond Tiffany earrings have been recovered from a suspected thief after they showed up in an X-ray image.
Detectives recovered the diamond earrings from the suspected thief two weeks after he swallowed the jewellery worth almost £600,000 during his arrest. Jaythan Gilder, 32, had told staff at a Tiffany & Co store in Florida's Mall of Millennia he was interested in buying earrings and a diamond ring for an Orlando Magic basketball player in February.
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He was taken to a VIP room where he would be able to view the jewellery, but he ended up jumping out of his chair, grabbing the jewellery and forcing his way out the door, according to the Orlando Police Department.
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Jaythan Gilder, 32
Jaythan Gilder is being held in Orange County Jail where he faces charges of robbery with a mask and first-degree grand theft
Gilder, of Houston, Texas, made off with a $575,000 (£445,000) ring as well as around $780,000 (£603,700) worth of earrings according to Detective Aaron Goss. Cops managed to grab the licence plate of the suspect's car using security footage from the shopping centre and were able to then track his vehicle.
Eventually, Gilder was pulled over in Washington County, almost 340 miles away, for driving without rear lights. Detective Goss said Florida Highway Police "noticed items in his mouth he was attempting to swallow". When he was sitting in the back of the police car, an officer heard Gilder say "I should have thrown them out the window."
X-ray image of a man in custody with diamond earrings showing up in his stomach
Staff at the jail received a shock when the man was subjected to a body scan(Image: Ninth Judicial Circuit Court in and for Orange County)
Then, when he got to the Washington County jail, an arrest report claims he asked staff: "Am I going to be charged with what is in my stomach?" A body scan at the jail revealed "foreign objects suspected to be the Tiffany's earrings".
While one of the earrings were swiftly recovered, detectives had to wait for nature to take its course to recover the others. Gilder was taken to hospital where detectives kept a close eye on him for almost two weeks.
Gilder was taken to a VIP room at the Tiffany & Co store
Gilder was taken to a VIP room at the Tiffany & Co store
The last of the four earrings was recovered from the suspect last week, the Orlando Police Department confirmed on Friday. Three of the earrings were recovered two days before that, along with two other unidentified diamond earrings.
The four stolen earrings had a value of $770,000 (£596,000). Once the diamonds were recovered they were taken to a Tiffany's store where they were cleaned and a master jeweller was able to compare serial numbers with the stolen earrings.
Serial numbers on the earrings matched jewellery taken from the Tiffany store in late February. After the jewellery was recovered, Gilder was taken to Orange County Jail where he faces charges of robbery with a mask and first-degree grand theft.
CCTV shows a Tiffany & Co member of staff struggling with Gilder, wearing a red polo shirt and cap
Gilder pretended he was looking at the items on behalf of an Orlando Magic basketball player(Image: Ninth Judicial Circuit Court in and for Orange County)
In a post, the Orlando Police Department gave an update saying: "Shoutout to our detectives in the Violent Crimes Unit! After a long and labourous investigation involving stolen jewellery, they were able to recover over $769,000 worth of earrings swallowed by the suspect.
"Detectives monitored Jaythan Gilder for more than a dozen days at the hospital before they were able to match the serial numbers on the jewellery with the items that were stolen from Tiffany & Co. In the words of VCU Detective Aaron Goss, 'This case quickly turned into a marathon, not a sprint'."