Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 20, 1994 TAG: 9404200121
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By TODD JACKSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Short
The bank is across the street from a Crestar Bank branch that has been robbed twice in the past 10 months. Tuesday's robbery came on the heels of an April11 bank heist at the Bank of Floyd on Virginia 419 in Roanoke County.
Around 1:30 p.m., police said, a man entered the savings bank, calmly walked up to a teller and demanded money. The man was so calm, in fact, that the teller at first thought he was kidding, said Lt. W.J. Beason of the Roanoke Police Department.
When the teller did not immediately respond to the request, the man pulled out a handgun, Beason said. The teller then handed the suspect an undisclosed amount of cash.
The man calmly exited the bank and was last seen walking toward the Wendy's restaurant on Hershberger Road. The suspect remained at large Tuesday night.
Asked about the number of bank robberies in the area in the past few months, Beason said, "Yeah, we've had several lately."
The robberies have been frequent enough to cause Beason to check to make sure Tuesday's suspect was not the same man who robbed the Crestar branch March 23.
Danny Stewart Britts, 53, of the 200 block of Laurel Hill Drive in Vinton, was arrested and charged with that robbery minutes after it occurred. Britts had been convicted of robbing local banks twice before, in 1977 and 1982. He was sentenced to 64 years in prison for the 1982 robbery.
"The description was so close that I called down to the jail to make sure [Britts] was still there," he said. "He is, so he's got a good alibi."
by CNB