Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, December 10, 1994 TAG: 9412120046
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SARAH HUNTLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Ronald Leon Hairston, 20, was arrested in High Point, N.C., at 6:30 p.m. after he left a Travel Lodge motel. The Martinsville resident was charged with breaking and entering, robbery and malicious wounding in connection with the Dec. 2 robbery of the Dutch Inn Hotel and Convention Center.
Police said a 50-year-old female clerk was hit on the head and tied up during the robbery, which occurred about 3 a.m. The robber then took off with an undisclosed amount of hotel cash, three bank bags and two boxes containing coins.
Some of the stolen goods were recovered when Hairston was arrested, police said. In addition, authorities seized two knives, a semiautomatic pellet gun and a 1987 blue four-door Pontiac Sunbird that police said was purchased from a Henry County used-car dealership with money from the robbery.
It was the second arrest in connection with the string of robberies. On Nov. 22, Stephen Neal King, 27, was apprehended after two police chases and charged in the Nov. 20 robbery and beating of a Uni-Mart clerk.
"I feel really good that we have these two solved, especially since they were the ones where violence was used," Sgt. K.G. Nester said Friday. "It's a bad time of year to have all this going on."
The Henry County Sheriff's Office is following up on leads in the other three robberies, which police believe may be related, Nester said. The most recent of the three was at the Speedway Center on Virginia 57 early Wednesday. The other two occurred on Nov. 19 and Nov. 27 at a Uni-Mart in Stanleytown.
In all three, a man covered the lower part of his face with a cap and brandished a knife, police said.
by CNB