It's a jungle out there - would-be robber slips up

Two subdue him, but he disposes of evidence

 

Dan Galindo

Journal Reporter

Published: May 16, 2009

 

If he had thought about it, Bobby Ray Mabe probably wouldn't have attacked the man trying to rob his store early Thursday.

But when a man holding something under his shirt asked for a Mountain Dew, then demanded money, Mabe and a patron grabbed the man.

"If he had had a gun he would've shot me," Mabe said yesterday. "But he had a banana."

Mabe owns 109 Biz Center off Thomasville Road, a computer cafe that features sweepstakes games. Patrons buy sweepstakes cards, and then find out on a computer whether they have won a cash prize.

When a man came in just after 1 and asked for the Mountain Dew, Mabe had just paid out $2,000 to a winner. Now someone was trying to take what little money he had left.

"It just flew all over me, and before I knew it, I had my hands on him," he said.

Mabe and the patron held the robber in a chair while they waited for Forsyth County sheriff's deputies to arrive. Meanwhile, the would-be robber ate the banana.

"And the deputy said, ‘Aha! He ate the evidence,'" Mabe said. "But we had the banana peel, and they took a picture of it."

John Steven Szwalla, 17, of 340 Yukon Trail, Wallburg, was charged with one count of attempted armed robbery.

Deputies joked about charging him with destroying evidence, said Major Brad Stanley, a spokesman for the sheriff's office.

Szwalla is in the Forsyth County Jail, with bond set at $50,000. He also was charged yesterday with common-law robbery by the Davidson County Sheriff's Office.

Maj. Brian Grubb of the sheriff's office said that the robbery was at the Kangaroo Express on Hickory Tree Road and happened just before the attempted robbery at Mabe's store.

Grubb said he had no other details about the incident.

 

Sheriff's office: Man tries to rob store using a banana