4 arrested after St. Johns Town Center jewelry store robbery - The Florida Times-Union
A smash-and-grab robbery at a St. Johns Town Center jewelry store ended in the arrest of four people Tuesday night, three of them just minutes after it occurred, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.
Three of them, identified now as John Dijuan Davis, Delano Carlos Ross and Tristian G. Murphy, were arrested at the Jared Galleria of Jewelry on Town Center Parkway as they fled, while the fourth was picked up later Tuesday in Southeast Georgia, according to the Jacksonville and Camden County sheriff's offices.
An FBI tip about "possible crime activity" was relayed to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, which said it set up a surveillance team that spotted three men getting out of a white Nissan Sentra and going into Jared. Their Nissan was blocked in by officers as SWAT officers, also called in, approached the jewelry store door, police said. When the suspects ran out the door, they were caught after a short foot chase by SWAT, police said.
"They busted the counter. We busted their heist!," the Sheriff's Office tweeted Tuesday night.
Police said three walked into the Jared Galleria about 7 p.m. armed with hammers and began smashing the glass counters and grabbing jewelry. One of the men grabbed an employee by the neck and dragged her across the floor, according to that employee's mother.
"One of the guys had a weapon," mother Deborah Thompson told Times-Union new partner First Coast News, reading off a text message from her daughter. "He dragged me and put it against my neck. I'm OK, very shook up."
All three men caught outside Jared were charged with armed robbery, and remain behind bars ineligible for bail, according to Duval County jail records. Their arrest reports list Davis as 29, from Cherrylawn Street in Detroit, while Murphy is 30 and from Cloverlawn Street in Detroit as well. Ross is 28, with no address listed, his report said.
Police were also searching for a silver Hyundai Elantra with a South Carolina license plate driven by the fourth person connected with the case, the Sheriff's Office said.
That Hyundai was spotted heading north on Interstate 95 around Pecan Park Road about 7:30 p.m., and a Kingsland Police Department officer got behind it 20 minutes later as it passed into Georgia, officials said. The Camden County Sheriff's Office said its deputies pulled the car over at an exit ramp.
The driver, 28-year-old Devon Manquil Newby of Detroit, was booked into the Camden County jail on charges of driving with a suspended license and a Jacksonville hold in connection with the Jared robbery, the Sheriff's Office said.
Dan Scanlan: (904) 359-4549
