A Bowie County woman testified before a jury in federal court Tuesday that she was never able to return to her job at a small DeKalb, Texas, store after being robbed at gunpoint in 2015.
Bobby Wayne Lance, 50, of Avery, Texas, is accused of robbing Carter's Country Store and RV Park in DeKalb as well as a Lamar County movie theater and a Franklin County bank in November 2015. Tuesday was the second day of Lance's trial in Texarkana's downtown federal building before U.S. District Judge Robert Schroeder III.
"He told me to me to sit on the floor and that he better not catch me peeking out the window or getting up, and I didn't," Regina Wise testified under questioning from Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Wells.
The jury watched video surveillance footage from several angles as a man clad in a cap, plaid jacket, jeans, lace-up work boots, and black gloves with nylon hosiery pulled over his face entered the store waving a small chrome revolver. Wise testified that the robber forced her from the kitchen area where she was making a pizza at about 6 p.m. Nov. 14, 2015, to the cash register area. Wise said she handed over money from the register as her assailant urged her to, "Hurry up," grabbed some cigarettes and told her to hand over cash from a petty cash bag. In all, the robber netted about $800.
Wise testified that she dared not move from her spot on the floor behind the counter until she heard the jingle of a bell on the front door and a regular customer, coming for his pizza, found her about 20 minutes after the robber left. The customer called 911 and Bowie County Sheriff's Office Deputy Steven Powell responded.
Powell testified that Wise was so "very physically shaken," he called an ambulance. Wise said she was having trouble breathing and her blood pressure was "through the roof." She was never able to man the register or make a pizza at Carter's store again, Wise said.
Video surveillance footage outside the store captured the robber as he pulled off his baseball cap and panty hose mask, revealing a heavy-set man in his late 40s with a distinctive mustache. Wise was able Tuesday to identify Lance as the man who pointed a gun at her in 2015 despite his current clean-shaven appearance. As he did with witnesses who testified under questioning Monday by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Ross about being robbed Nov. 8, 2015, at the Movies 8 theater in Paris, Texas, defense lawyer Jeff Harrelson of Texarkana questioned Wise about her identification of Lance.
Three days after Carter's store was robbed, a man in a bright orange hoodie, black gloves, and brown lace-up boots walked into the First National Bank of Mount Vernon, Texas, Cypress Springs Branch, in Franklin County pointing a small chrome revolver. Shannon Oliver testified that she and bank manager Jeremy Byrd were the only people in the small bank at about 1:15 p.m. Nov. 17, 2015, when it was robbed.
"It's just a two-person branch, very small," Oliver testified under questioning from Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan Locker. "I was standing behind the teller line when Mr. Lance walked through the door yelling, 'This is a robbery. Get on the floor. Give me the money.'"
Oliver said she thought the man was joking at first.
"Because, get on the floor, give me the money, how does that work? Then I saw the gun," Oliver said.
As Oliver and Byrd testified, the jury watched video clips from cameras inside the bank, from an ATM motion activated camera and from a nearby grocery store. Oliver emptied the contents of a teller's cash drawer, including $1,000 in previously photocopied bait bills, into a plastic sack the robber brought with him. Byrd used his and Oliver's vault keys to unlock the bank's largest cash stash and handed the money to the robber, who left with more than $73,000. When he entered the bank, the robber asked about the owner of a gray Ford F-150 pickup parked outside and then demanded the keys from Byrd. Byrd's truck was found parked on a muddy road in front of an abandoned house about three miles from the bank.
Harrelson questioned Oliver and Byrd about their in-court identifications of Lance as the bank robber, pointing to their initial descriptions to police. Oliver described the robber as a "light-skinned black man," while Byrd described him as possibly Hispanic. Both witnesses testified they believe Lance is the man who robbed their bank after reviewing surveillance video and seeing Lance in court.
Bowie County investigator Chad Ford, who lead the investigation in the DeKalb robbery, testified that he received a call from staff at West Bowie Supply Store, about 13 miles south of DeKalb, several days after the Carter's store holdup. Ford said the employees recognized the robber's photo as a man who occasionally came in with a logging crew from Red River County.
Former West Bowie Supply manager Jimmy Whitehead said it wasn't just Lance's mustache, build and bushy eyebrows that led him to believe he'd seen the man in the Bowie County robbery photos. Whitehead said an unusual mole by the robber's left eye was unmistakable though he didn't know the man's name.
Ford said that tip led him to forward his bulletin about the DeKalb robbery to the Red River County Sheriff's Office, where Barnaby Resendez, who was an investigator for RRCSO but now serves as the county's constable, made an identification.
After pulling up additional photos of Lance, the FBI and representatives of the Bowie, Red River and Franklin County sheriff's offices worked together to take Lance into custody Nov. 20, 2015. After acquiring a search warrant for the house where Lance was living with his brother in Avery, Texas, the lawmen began hunting for evidence to connect Lance to all three robberies and the carjacking of the bank manager's truck.
Ford, Bowie County Capt. Robby McCarver, Franklin County investigator Robert Zinn, and FBI Special Agent Ed Kilgore testified about the search of Lance's home and blue Dodge truck. Two black nylon bags full of cash, including the bait bills from Oliver's bank drawer, were found in the dryer, the witnesses testified. Black knee high women's hosiery was discovered in the kitchen trash. A small chrome revolver and a box of bullets were recovered from a plastic bag in a drawer in a storage shed. Documents showing that Lance paid off the note on his truck, paid past due bills and bought four new tires since the robberies were discovered, the officers testified.
The officers did not find a plaid jacket, an orange hoodie, a pair of black gloves or brown lace-up boots, they testified under questioning from Harrelson.
Witness testimony is expected to continue this morning.
Each of the three robberies is punishable by up to 20 years in federal prison and the carjacking is punishable by up to 15 years, Locker said at an earlier hearing. Four other counts listed in Lance's eight-count indictment allege carrying a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence. Locker said the total sentences for the firearm counts could mean up to 82 years in federal prison in addition to the sentences Lance could receive for the underlying robberies.
Lance has been in federal custody since his arrest Nov. 20, 2015. If found guilty of any of the counts facing him, he will be formally sentenced before Schroeder at a later date.