A Good Samaritan’s sixth sense helped spur a hunt for two purse-snatchers at Weaver’s department store Wednesday afternoon.

About 1:45 p.m. Wednesday, Nancy Ornburn was strolling along Massachusetts Street, enjoying her summer vacation from her teaching job at New York Elementary School, when she decided pop into Weaver’s to check out their latest makeup promotion.

When Ornburn walked through the store’s entrance, a young man was holding the door open even after she’d entered, which Ornburn found suspicious. Ornburn watched the young man wait with the door open for a woman he was with to leave the store, she said. When they left, Ornburn saw the two get into a black SUV, which sped away east on Ninth Street.

Ornburn said that’s when she notified an employee nearby of what she saw.

“I asked her, ‘Are you missing something?'” Ornburn said.

Ornburn said she worked at a store on Massachusetts Street in high school, which gave her a good instinct about people.

“I’ve done retail,” Ornburn said. “Something just wasn’t right.”

The employee, Jordan Tibbs, then discovered her black leather purse had gone missing from underneath a makeup counter. Police were then dispatched to the scene.

Less than an hour later, Douglas County dispatchers said contents of Tibbs’ purse were found strewn along the eastbound lanes of Kansas Highway 10 east of Lawrence.

Luckily, Tibbs said, she’d gone out the night before and had taken her credit card out of her purse. She only had about $20, her driver’s license and Kansas University student ID in the bag, but said she was grateful to Ornburn for her careful eye.

“I was putting things away and didn’t see anything happen,” Tibbs said. “I’m so glad she was there.”

As of 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, the theft suspects had not yet been located.