COLCHESTER, Vt. -
An armed robber is still at large tonight.
Police think the same man struck three times in just one night. And at one of the convenience stores, the suspect pulled the trigger. Fortunately though, no shots were fired.
Take a good look at the surveillance picture, because police need your help identifying the thief.
"Very often the motive is drugs," Lieutenant Douglas Allen of the Colchester Police Department said.
Police say the man in this surveillance picture was likely desperate for a quick high. In order to so, the suspect held up three different clerks at gas stations in Colchester and South Burlington late Sunday night.
"We have a number of robberies in the area every year, this level of violence or this level of attempted violence is something new to us," Lt. Allen said.
The five foot eight white man wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt, jeans and a white bandanna covering his face started at the Simon's on Shelburne Road. He showed a gun, demanded money and left with an unknown amount. He was last seen running away.
"This is to me, kind of nuts," concerned resident Richard Jervis said.
Around 11:40pm, the Champlain farms on Route 7 was the next target.
Employees are taught to be 100 percent cooperative during robberies and take down a mental description of the individual , but even still at this Champlain Farms, the trigger was pulled several times, but fortunately no shots were fired.
"The video's not clear enough for us to see whether it was a malfunction of the weapon or the weapon may not have been a firearm, may have been a pellet gun," Lt. Allen said.
14 minutes later, the clerk at the Maplefields down the road was shown the same long barreled revolver as he demanded cigarettes and money.
"When somebody points a gun at you, you don't know what they're thinking, you don't know what they're on, you don't know what they're going to do and yea, it is scary, very scary," Jervis said.
Police don't think the thief got any more than two hundred dollars total last night.
No vehicles were seen in any of the robberies, but a police dog did pick up the scent of a car, so one may have been used.
If you have any information, call police.
