RIDGEWAY – In yet another daring robbery at gunpoint of the Dollar General store in Ridgeway, a gunman got away with $1,400 after threatening to shoot the store’s manager during an early morning heist on Sunday, Jan. 28.
The store manager reported that as he was in the process of stacking items for display outside the store about 8 a.m. when a black male, about 40 years old and driving a gray Nissan Maxima, approached him from behind.
The manager said the suspect was composed and brandished a silver/chrome semi-automatic hand gun as he demanded money from the store’s cash register.
As the manager began to load money from the register and safe into a yellow Dollar General bag, the suspect demanded all the cash as well as the rolls of change. The manager said the suspect kept one hand on the gun and the other hand balled up, being careful not to touch anything.
After the money was loaded into the bag and placed on the counter, the manager reported that the gunman ordered him into a back storage room. The incident report states that the gunman followed the victim into the storage room, told him to stay there and threatened, “Don’t make me shoot you.”
Stating that he feared for his life, the manager said he waited a few minutes after the gunman left before exiting the storage room and calling law enforcement.
While Fairfield County Sheriff’s deputies state that the store did not have exterior surveillance cameras, the entire robbery scene and the suspect were recorded on interior cameras. Deputies also reported that they hoped exterior cameras from the adjacent Nelson Funeral Home would offer a good angle of the suspect and the suspect’s vehicle.
Deputies also visited the AM/PM Convenience store on Highway 34 E in Ridgeway to review surveillance camera footage in an attempt to identify the suspect’s vehicle as it drove along Highway 34 immediately prior to and following the nearby Dollar General robbery.
The surveillance footage is reported to show the Nissan traveling east on Highway 34 E towards the Dollar General at 7:58 a.m. on Jan. 28. The same vehicle is then seen traveling west on Highway 34 E, headed towards the area of I-77 at 8:07 a.m. However, Sheriff’s deputies say they cannot be sure at this time whether the Nissan on the surveillance footage is the same as the suspect’s.
The report stated the modus operandi of this incident closely resembles those of a recent string of armed robberies at Dollar Generals in Kershaw, Lancaster, York and Richland Counties.
The robbery remains under investigation.
