Armed robber hits Donegal Township, W.Va. stores
A Donegal Township police vehicle sits outside the Exxon station in Donegal Township following a robbery attempt Tuesday.
A surveillance image of the armed robbery suspect Tuesday at the Exxon station in Donegal Township
The owner of the Exxon station just outside Claysville said he put a man attempting to rob his business in a headlock Tuesday afternoon and nearly chased after him in a vehicle pursuit, but lost sight of the man as he fled the Route 40 business.
State troopers and Donegal Township police were searching the area for the suspect, described as a thin, white man in his 20s. A 911 supervisor said the suspect apparently headed toward West Alexander. No arrests have yet been reported.
Frye’s Stateline Grocery on Route 40 in Valley Grove, W.Va., just across the state line from West Alexander, also was hit by a man matching the same description attempting to rob it at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Dilip Monpara, owner and manager of the Exxon, said the attempted robbery happened at 12:54 p.m. He said he was talking about hunting with the man, whom he recognized as a past customer.
The man asked for a pack of cigarettes and then asked Monpara to open the register before he paid. Monpara refused, and the man asked two more times. After Monpara refused a third time, the man told him to open the register and said, “I need all the money you have in the register.”
“That’s the time I realized he’s trying to rob me,” Monpara said.
He said he then walked around the counter and confronted the man, who tried to draw his semiautomatic handgun. Monpara said he put the man in a headlock, causing him to drop the gun.
The man struggled and broke free, picked up his gun and fled. Monpara said he did not see the vehicle the man left in because he ran inside to get his car keys to chase the would-be robber. He said he did not plan to take matters into his own hands but wanted to get more information to notify police.
Monpara said his store was last robbed in 2005. Police are reviewing images from surveillance cameras.
Cameras at Frye’s Stateline Grocery also captured images of the suspect. Spring Lemasters, who was operating the cash register at the time, said a young man wearing camouflage came up to the counter and asked for a pack of cigarettes. He then demanded she hand over all the cash in the register.
She described him as “a young punk of a kid” who spoke in such a low voice that she had to lean forward to hear him.
Lemasters said she kept telling him, “You don’t want to do this,” and told him there were cameras in the store.
He reportedly backed away from the counter and showed the outline of a gun in his pocket.
Lemasters said she made a judgment call and decided to run to a secure break room behind the counter, where the manager and assistant manager were located. She locked the door and hit a buzzer to notify police.
“I never experienced nothing like this, but I felt like I had to get back in that office behind a locked door,” she said.
She said customers reported the man fled the store and got into the passenger side of a vehicle parked a distance from the store parking lot.
Donegal Township police, state police and the Ohio County, W.Va., sheriff’s department did not return calls seeking further information.