News

Actions

Neighborhood at ease with arrest of alleged bank robber

Posted at 7:29 PM, Jan 22, 2013
and last updated 2013-01-23 00:54:58-05

HANOVER COUNTY, Va. (WTVR)--Rebecca Kolpa will always remember the day of December 5, 2012.

She and her twin six-year-old children walked out of a Kroger and spotted three police cars.

It would be a short time later, when home and on Facebook, she would learn the bank inside the grocery store had been robbed.

Kolpa says the Peeble Creek neighborhood went on alert, with parents keeping their children inside, since the community sits about one mile from the store.

Children playing football would later tell parents that they saw the man in the bank photo's walking through the neighborhood, the day of the robbery.

Now the FBI says the suspect, knows as the "Ray Bandit" has been caught after a string of 17 bank robberies across seven states.

Agents said that Jeremy Evans is the man behind the sun glasses.

He was picked up after a bank robbery near Chicago, in Elgin, Ill., on January 15 and is being held without bond.

The "Ray Bandit" is accused of robbing two banks in Hanover County last month.  Police said he first robbed the Sun Trust bank inside the Kroger in the 6300 block of Mechanicsville Turnpike.  Later that day, deputies responded to the BB&T bank located in the 9100 block of Chamberlayne Road at 3:15 p.m. for another robbery.

Sergeant Chris R. Whitley with Hanover County Sheriff’s Office said the suspect passed a teller at both banks a note demanding money. Once the teller handed over an undisclosed amount of cash, the suspect took off.