By Michael D. Martin, E.C.P.D.
Retired
About the author...Michael Martin (pictured front row, far right in the
1981 photo) is a retired veteran of 25 years on the Eden City Police
Department, and has penned a number of anecdotal writings recalling his
experiences.
XVII. The Wachovia Bank Robbery
Again I do not remember the year but I remember we had a brand new Chief of
Police, He was a nice enough fellow from Montgomery County, Maryland. On
this day, the Chief and I were riding around and I was trying to fill him in
on the people and the officers of Eden.
We were riding in my Burgundy Plymouth Fury so I know it was shortly after 1987. We heard a radio call
that there was a bank robbery in progress at the Wachovia bank on Van Buren
and we screamed towards that location. A white male had entered the bank
with what looked to be a large handgun and had robbed the bank of an
undetermined amount of monies. Our dispatcher was Toni Spann and she had the
presence of mind to keep the teller on the line as another teller ran to the
door to see the robber get onto a black motorcycle and head off north on Van
Buren. Toni Spann also broadcast that the robber was wearing a black helmet.
The Chief and I got to the bank a few minutes too late but then an Eden City
Police Officer named Bob Jones was checking on, having finished his dinner
at home on Scott Street. Bob Jones heard the traffic on the radio and was
speeding to the central area.
When Bob got near Morehead High School, he
met a black motorcycle operated by a man with a black helmet, Bob turned
around and called in that he was in pursuit. The Chief and I fired up the
Plymouth Fury and went to Draper at 110 miles per hr. listening to bob
calling in the turns he was making in the pursuit. When we crossed over the
Edgewood Drive intersection, we actually got airborne for a few seconds and
we screamed past Junior Lemmon's garage as fast as that old Fury would run.
Our bank robber made a few turns and wound up turning onto South Avenue and
he turned his motorcycle loose. He was running over eighty miles per hour
when he topped the hill at South Avenue, Bob backed off a little and began
to slow down for the 90% turn at the top of the hill. The bank robber did
not know it was there, he topped the hill at eighty....and there was no more
road!!! He hit the ditch and went out thru the apple orchard, end over end.
Witnesses said he hung onto the bike the first flip, came a little loose
the second flip and was shot about fifteen feet into the air on the third
flip. The chief and I arrived a moment later and the smoke and steam was
spewing from what was left of the bike, Money was still fluttering thru the
air and Officer Bobby Jones had pushed the barrel of a large bore pistol
about an inch into the bank robber's ear.
In thirty seconds, there were so many marked and plain
police cars on the scene a fella could not pass on the road. We cuffed our
boy and took him to Morehead Hospital Emergency room under guard to be
checked and the fool actually bragged to the nurses that he was a bank
robber by profession, the nurse looked startled, and one of the Eden
Detectives whispered "we bank robber catchers...by
profession" After it was determined that our boy did not have
internal injuries or broken bones, we took him back to Eden, PD for
interrogation.....There we were met by a team of F.B.I. guys who took our
prisoner and left without so much as, thanks. The next morning the
Greensboro Daily News had a headline, The F.B.I. had solved an Eden bank
robbery and captured the robber. We thought "oh hell yea, that's why
they make the big bucks!"
The next day, we got the North Carolina Crimes
Digest, where any department in North Carolina could request information
about crimes from any other department about unsolved crimes. on one page we
saw a picture of our boy robbing a bank in Dunn, N.C....it was him. I got on
the phone to detective division in Dunn and asked the detective if they had
cleared the bank robbery there. He said no! and the Chief was all over their
butts. I told them that Eden PD had ran down and arrested the same fellow in
the picture for a bank robbery in Eden and the FBI now had him in
Greensboro. His reaction was immediate, Wait, Wait...don't hang up boy, let
me get a pencil, who did you say you were??
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to: Funny, Funny Stories From my days at Eden, P.D.