When Danielsville Police Chief Brennan Baird examined a video obtained off a hidden surveillance camera in the Rite Aid store of Danielsville, the chief reported he was astounded at what he observed.

A store employee was suspected of stealing money to purchase Georgia lottery tickets inside the store and the video showed a behavior of constant thefts, according to the report. Store officials suspected her of taking money on "hundreds of occasions."

The suspect would "literally remove money from the register, buy tickets, scratch them off, cash them out and repeat," according to the report.

As a result of the investigation in which approximately $7,000 to $10,000 is missing, charges of felony theft were filed Aug. 25 against employee Vickie Jean Matthews, 51, of Drake Woods Road, Danielsville.

"On several days of surveillance I watched Vickie unlock the store, get the systems up and running, and then begin to play the lottery," Baird said in his report.

But during the investigation, police also observed a pattern of theft by two other Rite Aid employees, Robin Booth Mathis, 55, of Danielsville and Dianna Eve Farr, 50, of Winterville Road, Athens.

They were also charged with theft.

The three women appeared to be taking the money individually and not in concert with each other, according to the report.

When confronted, Mathis told police she had been taking store money to purchase the lottery tickets for several months, while Farr admitted she had been engaged in thefts for about a month, according to the report.

Matthews, who worked at Rite Aid for 19 years, supervised the lottery register and told police she was "borrowing" the money. She admitted she had been borrowing the money since sometime before Christmas 2015, according to the report.

Company officials were alerted to a possible problem because the Rite Aid in Danielsville was surprisingly selling more lottery tickets than almost every other store in Georgia, according to Baird.