Authorities: Woman lied about sex in SUV to hide laptop theft

ALEX HARCHAREK

The Daily Journal
Staff Writer

VINELAND -- The real story behind what happened to a Vineland woman who made up a tale about being carjacked, and then told police she was having sex with a driver when their SUV crashed, took another strange twist, authorities said Thursday.

Turns out both accounts were nothing but lies designed to cover up her role in the theft of a laptop computer that led to stealing a car and committing arson, authorities said.

The woman, 23-year-old Sara C. Blasse of Galli Drive, initially told Vineland police she broke her arm in a confrontation with an armed carjacker in Chesilhurst early Saturday morning, authorities said. Officers found her wrecked SUV abandoned on a residential street in the Camden County town, smoldering from an apparent arson.

But police said they weren't fooled by inconsistencies in her account of the carjacking, which prompted Blasse to change her story and say a male prostitute crashed her car while she gave him oral sex.

That story wasn't true either, the Camden County Prosecutor's Office announced Thursday.

Further investigation revealed Blasse and her boyfriend, 27-year-old Newtonville resident Henry Goode Jr., stole a laptop from a vehicle on Miller Street in Chesilhurst, the Prosecutor's Office said. The computer's owner witnessed the theft and called police.

The couple evaded police, but soon crashed Blasse's 2003 Kia Sorento at Atlantic and Sherman avenues in Chesilhurst, breaking Blasse's arm in the process, Prosecutor's Office spokesman Jason Laughlin said.

Blasse and Goode then stuffed paper towels into the SUV's gas tank and attempted to set it on fire but failed, Laughlin said. The couple fled in opposite directions, he said.

Goode's brother took Blasse to South Jersey Healthcare Regional Medical Center, where she told police her first of two phony explanations, authorities said.

While Blasse was at the hospital, Goode stole a van from a South Jersey Gas facility in Winslow, police said. He drove south to Atlantic County, where he abandoned the vehicle in Buena Vista -- but not before attempting, and failing, to ignite the vehicle's gas tank, the Prosecutor's Office said.

Goode then fled to his home on the 400 block of 10th Street, where he was arrested Wednesday, police said.

Blasse is charged with aggravated arson, burglary, theft, hindering apprehension by destroying evidence and filing a false report. She was released on bail Thursday.

Goode was charged with aggravated arson, burglary, theft and hindering apprehension. He was being held at Camden County Jail.