An unidentified woman stole a Medill student’s wallet last week and charged $1,000 to the student’s credit card at a south-suburban Gap store, police said.

Annette Kent, a first-year Medill graduate student, returned from her lunch break Sept. 22 to find her wallet missing from the purse she left inside an unlocked Fisk Hall classroom, she told police.

“I didn’t think I had lost it at first,” said Kent, 23. “I thought I misplaced it or I just hadn’t brought it.”

Kent realized what had happened when her credit card company called her about the charge, she said.

After that, Kent cancelled the cards in her wallet, including her Gap card. “I put it in the back of my head and thought, ‘No big deal’,” she said.

A manager at The Gap at River Oaks Center mall in Calumet City, Ill., called Kent on Saturday afternoon.

“(She) was surprised that I answered my phone,” Kent said. “She said someone had been in the store a few minutes earlier using my name, behaving strangely, and had made the (other) customers uncomfortable.”

The offender re-opened Kent’s Gap card using an ID in her wallet, but after the person spent $1,000 with it, the store owner became concerned.

“She said the woman stumbled when asked what her address was and it took her several times to get it out,” Kent said.

Kent said she called Evanston Police Department and filed a report after learning about the purchase. Her case was transferred to University Police because the incident occurred in a university building.

University Police have contacted Kent, said Asst. Chief Daniel McAleer of UP, but they have not yet met with her to begin their investigation.

Despite police efforts, Kent said she is not optimistic they will be able to find out who took her wallet.

“I honestly don’t think anything will happen,” Kent said. “It’s disheartening to know someone is willing to go to such lengths for a couple hundred dollars.”