Feds, local law enforcement searching for bank robbers who kidnapped women
Deputies in Gadsden, U.S. Marshals and the FBI are still looking for two men who allegedly robbed an Anniston bank this morning and later kidnapped two women from a Lenlock neighborhood. Etowah County Sheriff Todd Entrekin said he has about 20 deputies currently searching the area in east Gadsden where the two men abandoned two kidnap victims and a stolen car. Anniston police Chief John Dryden said the two armed men robbed the Wachovia Bank branch on Bill Robison Parkway between 10 and 10:30 a.m.
Surveillance camera photos show men with handguns holding what appear to be a bank employee and a customer at gunpoint in the bank lobby and near a safe. The men both appear to be wearing stocking masks covering their heads. Witnesses told police the suspects fled the scene in a teal Honda Civic. The witnesses were able to tell police which direction the car went, and officers found it soon after abandoned in the driveway of a home in the 300 block of East Glade Road, less than a mile from the bank. Neighbors there told police they'd witnessed a kidnapping as suspects matching descriptions of the alleged bank robbers stole a Nissan Altima from another house nearby and took two female hostages. The men apparently abandoned the kidnap victims and the car behind Crestwood Cemetery in East Gadsden a short time later, according to Gadsden Police Captain Jeff Wright. The two women then drove to the Glencoe Police Department just after 11 a.m., said Glencoe police Chief Johnny Chambers. Further details on their release and condition were not immediately available. "They were understandably a bit shaken up," said Chambers. Martha Reid, 84, who lives near the 300 block of Brookwood Drive, across the street from where the kidnapping occurred, said police told her a woman in her eighties was leaving home with her caretaker for dialysis treatment when the men stopped and kidnapped them. She said last she heard the woman was in Glencoe and was being taken to a hospital. "It was mighty close to home," Reid said. "Nothing like this happens out at Lenlock. Mostly seniors live out here. It's very scary." Willie Hollie, a 34-year resident of East Glade Road, stood in his driveway while police swarmed the house a few doors down, searching the abandoned vehicle. "The only thing we've had on this street in the past are wrecks," he said. "Nothing like this." According to Chambers, the FBI has taken up the investigation. Police still are looking for the two suspects. Detailed descriptions of the men were not immediately available. One woman at the bank reportedly needed medical attention likely caused from the stress of the situation, said Dryden. The amount of money, if any, taken from the bank was not yet known, he said. Continue checking annistonstar.com for more details on this story as they become available. Staff writers Nick Cenegy and Megan Nichols contributed to this report. |
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