They saw her outside supermarkets.

She conned some of them out of as much as $1,300.

When Shirley Sue Urich’s mug shot appeared in the newspaper Thursday, many people did a double take.

“Wow, that was her,” said Michael Smith, of Monroe. “I’m glad we only gave her $2.”

Urich, 58, was arrested Oct. 9 when an alert security guard at the Quil Ceda Creek Casino recognized her from a wanted poster.

The woman is suspected of bilking dozens of people out of thousands of dollars throughout Western Washington.

Police say she typically spun a tale of being a desperate widow in need of a few hundred dollars.

The Everett woman has at least 19 felony convictions across the country and now faces several additional theft charges in Snohomish County.

Police had been looking for her since 2006, Lynnwood police detective Doug Teachworth said.

She was caught at a casino last week and jailed on outstanding warrants and for parole violations.

After news of her arrest was made public and her photo widely circulated, Teachworth said he began hearing from people he believes are additional victims.

“The calls are still coming in,” he said.

He’s collecting the stories and will turn the information over to Snohomish County prosecutors.

Marvin Miller said he remembers seeing Urich outside the Top Foods in Snohomish, begging.

Smith, the Monroe woman, talked to Teachworth and told him about her encounter a few months ago outside a Monroe supermarket.

She and her husband believe they met Urich, who asked for $200 to pay for a motel room. The woman said her boyfriend had burned down her home and she was desperate for cash.

They gave her $2, then went into the grocery store to call the motel to make arrangement to pay for the room.

Someone at the store told them not to bother, the woman in the parking lot already had bilked someone else out of the money.

When they went to look for Urich, she was gone, Smith said.

At Double DD Meats in Mountlake Terrace, the owners weren’t so lucky, Kim Nygard said.

A few years ago, Urich allegedly told Nygard’s father, now retired, that her husband was a regular customer. The husband had recently died, the woman explained through tears, and he had wanted to give the store owner his gun collection.

She convinced Nygard’s father to hand over $150 after hearing the sob story and empty promises.

“It bothered him for a long time. He felt conned,” Nygard said.

In Stanwood, Doug Whitney of Precise Machining Inc. said he was scammed for $1,300 in May.

A woman he believes to be Urich told him a now familiar story about a dead husband who had been a customer.

He was pleased to hear that Urich is now behind bars.

“I was excited, I was really happy,” he said. “Now, I just want to make sure I can do everything I can to make sure she stays in jail.”