Police accuse bank robbery suspect of gobbling up note (with dashcam video)

Gina Mace
Special to the Beacon Journal

06:58 p.m. EST, Nov 20, 2009

Police believe they have their man.

But they fear their suspect in a bank robbery may have eaten some of the evidence — the note handed to a Streetsboro bank teller demanding cash — while he was handcuffed and leaning over the hood of a police cruiser.

Twinsburg police Patrolman Daniel Biada said a dash cam video of Thursday's arrest of John H. Ford, 35, of Cleveland, shows Ford gobbling a piece of paper while officers searched his pockets.

"As we're searching him, officers are removing items and throwing them on the cruiser [hood],'' Biada said. ''We're searching him for weapons. We're not looking at his head.''

The whereabouts of the note demanding money came into question after Biada was taken into custody and Streetsboro investigators asked whether officers had found the piece of paper.

Twinsburg police reviewed the images captured on camera and said they observed Ford leaning over to eat something off the hood of the cruiser.

''He grabbed it in his mouth, just like Pacman,'' Biada said. ''He just ate it right there.''

Authorities said they found a .38-caliber pistol on the driver's side floor of Ford's car and a wad of cash covered in red ink on the passenger side of the vehicle.

Ford is also a suspect in bank robberies in Stow and Akron.

In the Streetsboro case, a man walked into the FirstMerit branch on state Route 14 around 10 a.m. and handed a teller a note that demanded money. The robber did not produce a gun inside of the bank.

Witnesses say he fled in a dark Ford Escort.

Twinsburg police stopped Ford, who was driving a black Ford Escort, on Interstate 480 shortly after the robbery was reported and turned him over to Streetsboro police.

LINK TO VIDEO

http://www.ohio.com/news/70663697.html