ROBBER HITS MERCANTILE BANK IN CRYSTAL RIVER
October 14, 2008 10:21 pm County News, Events(Crystal River) Just before 3:30 p.m. today, a lone white male entered the
front door of the Mercantile Bank at 1000 S.E. U.S. Highway 19. At the time, five bank employees were in the building, but no customers were there.
With some kind of cloth covering his face, the suspect approached one of the tellers and demanded cash. Although he alluded to having a weapon, none was ever displayed.
The masked man was given an undisclosed amount of money. He exited the front door of the bank and ran around to the back of the building.
A bank employee followed him in an attempt to get a visual on his direction of travel or a vehicle description. He was seen jumping into a 1991 Plymouth Voyager station wagon/van. It was described as being two-tone, either blue or gray.
Minutes before the suspect entered the bank, he went into the ABC Fine Wine & Spirits store at 822 S.E. U.S. Highway 19. His behavior was strange enough that workers there took note of his tag number and passed it along to Citrus County deputies. Since he wasn’t masked at the time, the store’s surveillance video captured a strong image of the suspect.
Information provided by good witnesses at both the store and bank enabled deputies to identify a very viable person of interest in the case.
Citrus deputies are attempting to locate the man at this time.
