Deputies: Man stole cellphone from 4-year-old at Deltona Walmart

Girl's father: 'She was devastated'

DELTONA, Fla. – A man was arrested after stealing a phone from a 4-year-old inside a Walmart store in Deltona, investigators said Monday.

“I took the phone out of my pocket, I (had) it in my hand, then I put it down,” said the child, Angelina Quiles. “And someone took it.”

The girl’s father, Nelson Quiles, said he doesn’t care about the phone itself.

“It’s just the fact that somebody stole from a 4-year-old (is) what upset me,” he told News 6.

Quiles said he went in the store to buy his son a birthday cake while Angelina went to return movies with her uncle at the Red Box.

"I was trying to put the movies back in the movie box and then I put it down,” Angelina said of the phone.

Added her father, "She put the phone down for a quick second to put the movies into the Red Box and somebody snatched it up.”

Nelson Quiles said he went back to look for the phone, but it wasn't there. He decided he’d send a text message to the number, and that’s when, deputies said, Mykhal Henderson responded.

"I was telling him he should return the phone because he stole it from a 4-year-old,” Quiles said. “He pretty much laughed in my face.”

Investigators said Henderson texted back “LMAO,” which is text slang for laughter, and said Henderson told Quiles he found the phone on the floor and was going to keep it.

"(Angelina) was crying,” Quiles said. “She was devastated. What would you do if someone stole from your child? I mean, how would you take it?”

Deputies said Henderson was captured on surveillance video walking into the store. He was seen walking out of the store pushing a cart with a purchase he had made online.

Detectives identified him through the online order and arrested him in a traffic stop, where they said he confessed.

Henderson’s criminal history shows he has six prior convictions for theft.

The phone will be returned to Angelina very soon.