ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, August 20, 1996 TAG: 9608200064
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DIANE STRUZZI STAFF WRITER
A Southwest Roanoke convenience store was robbed early Monday by an armed man wearing a stocking cap pulled over his head.
Police are not connecting this robbery with four hold-ups over the weekend in Roanoke and Roanoke County in which robbers wore ski masks.
About 12:39 a.m. Monday, a masked man pointed a handgun at a clerk at the E-Z-N Food Mart at 2939 Edgewood St. S.W. The robber demanded money, and the clerk gave him a small amount of cash. The robber then approached a customer in the store and demanded money. The customer tried to give the robber $2, but the robber knocked it out of his hand and fled the store.
In other incidents over the weekend, police said:
* Four men assaulted two motorists Sunday night in Northwest Roanoke.
Police said a 29-year-old man and his 32-year-old wife were stopped at a red light at 10th Street and Orange Avenue Northwest about 9:10 p.m. Four men approached the couple's car and tried to hide their faces with some type of cloth.
Johnny Clyde Mullins got out of the car and was hit by two of the four men. The other two men threw a cinder block through the driver's side window, injuring Ginger Ann Mullins. The four men fled on foot. Nothing was taken from the couple.
Ginger Mullins was treated at a hospital for injuries to her head and shoulder. Her husband refused treatment for scratches to his forehead.
* An arsonist burned a storage shed at Second Presbyterian Church on Mountain Avenue in Old Southwest about 3 a.m. Sunday.
The shed, which held playground equipment, sustained about $5,000 in damage, according to investigators.
* A 78-year-old man was robbed Saturday night in Southwest Roanoke by a man who asked for directions.
About 8:53 p.m., Carl Everett Dillon was walking on Winona Avenue when a man asked him for directions to Highland Park. The man then grabbed Dillon's hands, threw him to the ground and ripped Dillon's wallet from his back pocket. The wallet contained $300. Police said the robber got into a small car and fled. Dillon's hand was injured, police said.
* Two men broke into a Southeast Roanoke home Saturday afternoon and took about $100 in change from a large bottle.
Police said a woman who lived on Stewart Avenue walked downstairs about 1:30 p.m. and found two men emptying a bottle of change. The woman tried to run to the phone, but one man grabbed her and hit her several times.
She was treated at a hospital for minor injuries.
The robbers may have entered the house by breaking a lock on the storm door, police said.
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