Arrests have now been made in a tragic killing over money at Lakewood’s Wal-Mart. And there’s now a chance that the men arrested were responsible for some robberies in Kitsap.
As you might recall, there were three takeover-style robberies in 2008 in the county in which the victims were tied up. And according to the Tacoma News Tribune’s Lights and Sirens blog, the suspects in the Wal-Mart killing may well have been responsible for the Kitsap crimes:
“Area detectives are looking into whether these suspects were involved in any unsolved robberies,” the TNT wrote. ” Among those is a string of 11 takeover-style robberies in the region, including five in Pierce County.”
Here’s a recap of the Kitsap robberies:
The first, an armed robbery at the Silverdale Dollar Tree store in April, reads like this (as published in the Kitsap Sun on April 17, 2008):
Deputies were called to the store, at 10300 Silverdale Way NW, shortly after 9 p.m. Employees there said two men, wearing dark clothing, hooded sweatshirts and bandanas over their faces, entered the store and demanded money. One of the men had a gun, reports said.
The second, another armed robbery at Great Clips hair salon in South Kitsap Sept. 22, went this way:
Both (suspects) were wearing dark glasses and black-hooded sweatshirts, witnesses reported. Both suspects wore bandannas covering their faces and “puffy down-style jackets,” (sheriff’s spokesman Scott) Wilson said.
The suspects, carrying metallic or chrome-colored semiautomatic handguns, entered around 8:40 p.m. and ordered people in the building to the floor, Wilson said. They ordered one employee to the register and demanded cash. It is unclear whether they actually got any money, he added.
Five days later, two armed men held up the Auto Zone store in East Bremerton. Here are those facts:
One of the suspects was reported to have been armed with a sub-machine gun that resembled an Uzi.
The clerks were taken to the rear of the store and tied with duct tape while the perpetrators removed an undisclosed amount of money from the store’s safe
All three robberies occurred around closing time — when cash registers and safes were full from the day — and according to Kitsap County Sheriff’s Detective Steve Duckworth, they were all “very well planned.”
