Behny -- who has the starring role of Belle in the touring production of Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" playing in Anchorage this week -- was shopping in the nutrition section at Fred Meyer on Dimond Boulevard about 4:30 p.m. She was talking to Layton Imlah, who works in that section. She had a shopping basket hooked onto one elbow. Her purse was in the basket.
"I looked around and saw a man rooting in my purse," she said. "He grabbed something. I looked and saw that he had taken my wallet."
The thief had made "a pretty gutsy move," said Imlah. "She started after him, saying, really humbly, 'Sir, please stop, please stop.' "
The snatcher started running. Behny and Imlah gave chase.
The 24-year-old musical actress, originally from Silver Lake, Ind., has strong legs and strong lungs. She began shouting, "Stop that man!"
That drew the attention of others in the store.
"Behny led the charge," said a report from the Anchorage Police Department. She was quickly joined by "several helpful shoppers and security folks willing to chase and apprehend him," the police said.
The man ran out the east-side entrance and along the front of the building.
"Emily was fast," said Imlah. "She had five yards on me."
At the west entrance, she caught up with the thief.
"I grabbed him and turned him around," Behny said Saturday evening, just after a matinee performance.
Behny apparently slowed him enough for the others to catch up.
Kelsey Hall was near that entrance in the parking lot, sitting in her car, waiting while a friend, Danny Mixayphon, cashed a check.
"I saw one guy running with two guys chasing him," Hall said. "I saw that one of the two guys chasing him was a butcher and I thought, 'Well, that's not OK.' "
Mixayphon came outside at that moment and asked Behny what the commotion was all about.
"She was like in tears," said Hall. "She said, 'He grabbed my wallet right out of my purse!' Danny got in the car and told me, 'Follow that guy.' "
The fleeing suspect ran past the Chevron station at Dimond and Victor Road and was outdistancing his pursuers, Hall said:
"Everyone was giving up on chasing him."
But the car gave her an advantage, and she caught up with him quickly.
Mixayphon jumped out and grabbed the man's coat.
The man wiggled out of his coat and kept going, Hall said.
"Danny dropped the jacket and kept running after him. I've never seen him move so fast."
He again grabbed onto the man and this time held him in place until the rest of the posse could catch up.
According to police, the group stopped the man at the corner of Victor and Sea Parrot Circle, a dead-end residential road across the street from Fred Meyer. They "escorted the suspect back to the store where he was held by security."
The police arrived and arrested Jose Caballero, 45, of Anchorage. He was charged with second-degree theft and detained at Anchorage Jail.
Behny -- her wallet, money and credit cards back in her hands -- made it to the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts in time for the 8 p.m. curtain.
"She did a great job on stage," said Lt. Dave Parker, the police spokesman. "I was in the audience with my grandson."
It took moxie to go on with the show after the snatching and pursuit. But concentration is part of the actor's job.
"It was a pretty startling event," Behny said between performances on Saturday. "Thank God for a bunch of nice Alaskans."
"It was a lot of adrenaline, a lot of out-of-breath," said Imlah. "But it didn't sit well with us that someone would come to Anchorage and have that happen to them. We were pretty determined to see that he got caught."
It was great to be able to assist a star in distress, said Hall. "But what was really cool is that a lot of people helped out and really cared."
"Beauty and the Beast" is playing to sold-out houses in Atwood Concert Hall through Saturday. The touring production will next go to Spokane, Wash., where it will open on Jan. 26.
Reach Mike Dunham at mdunham@adn.com or 257-4332.
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