Woman stops car thief with bleach

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A 72-year-old woman says a man who tried to steal her car made a big mistake. After she bopped him on the head with jars of laundry detergent and bleach, he was stunned long enough for a passer-by to hold him for police.

Philip Ramphal, 34, of Kansas City, was charged with first-degree attempted robbery in connection the incident outside a coin-operated laundry.

According to court records and the account from Earther McCombs, she pulled into the parking lot Thursday morning and took a load of clothes into the laundry. When she got out, a man acted as if he were going to cross the street. But instead he turned around and snatched her car keys from the pocket of her sweater.

She grabbed him from behind and shouted, "Give me my keys!"

"He turned around to look at me and I hit him in the eye with the jar of bleach," McCombs said. "He shook his head and kept fumbling with my keys to steal my car, so I hit him with the second jar."

A man from the laundry then came out and held the man, covered in bleach and liquid laundry detergent since the bottles had broken, until police arrived.

"I did what I had to do," she said. "He thought I was a little, gray-haired old lady who wouldn't fight back, but he made a mistake. A big mistake."