ROCKY HILL, Conn. -- A local inventor has created a device he hopes will help thwart purse snatchers.

"Every time I go in, I see these purses sitting in the kiddie seat with the handle just begging to be -- for some thief to come by and pick them up," inventor Vern Jones said.

Jones said he used to own two grocery stores and was business for about 20 years. But for the past five years, he said he's been creating what he calls Purse Secure.

"The purse goes into the basket, she closes the basket, and it's secure while she's standing behind it and shops," he said, describing the product of his labor.

The trick, he said, was figuring out how to make it so other carts could nest with each other.

"I made and discarded probably 5,000 designs and eventually came up with what I have now," he said. "Whenever I came up with this, I thought, 'It hit it. It hit a light bulb.'"

Jones said he decided to make the basket collapsible.

"This can be nested … with other baskets," he said.

Jones said the need for his product is pretty simple.

"The possibility of a purse being taken or snatched, as I call it, is stronger today than it ever has been," he said.

The Purse Secure costs about $50, Jones said. But he said he's trying to develop a way to make it cheaper so it can be installed on more shopping carts.