A man wanted for multiple armed robberies in Dothan, Ala., traveled through Bainbridge afterwards, helping police identify and later catch up with him.

Following up on information given to them by Alabama Alcohol and Beverage Agents on Feb. 12, Sheriff’s Investigator Redell Walton and Bainbridge Public Safety Investigator James Dollar were able to identify the suspect in the armed robberies as Stacy Lee Drake, 35, of Phoenix, Ariz.

Drake was later caught after allegedly robbing a man at gunpoint in Gordo, Ala., on Feb. 21. He is suspected in the two Dothan robberies as well as another in Fort Smith, Ark., earlier in February.

It seems that after Dothan law enforcement put a picture of the suspect in two armed robberies on the television, an Alabama woman who had been traveling from Thomasville, Ga., to Dothan realized she had seen the suspect when she stopped in Bainbridge. Sure enough, Walton’s review of surveillance video from the Kangaroo store on U.S. 84 East showed images of a man who appeared to be the same one wanted in Dothan getting coffee before leaving.

Investigator Dollar also did his homework and found out that Drake had also been in the Junior Mall convenience store on North Scott Street and spent a night in a Bainbridge motel, where a clerk recognized him.

Now knowing Drake’s name, Walton and Dollar put out a be-on-the-lookout notice to other police agencies.

On Feb. 21, Drake approached a customer who was leaving a grocery store in Gordo and held a gun to his head, the city’s police chief told The Tuscaloosa (Ala.) News. Drake stole the man’s wallet and the food he had just purchased, then fled in the victim’s car, according to the newspaper’s article.

Officers found Drake driving on nearby Pickens County Road 63 and chased him for eight miles. Drake crashed the car and was pinned inside, Hall said. He was freed, taken to the hospital and later taken to the Pickens County, Ala., where he is being held on a large bond amount.

Woman reports car shot up

Bainbridge Public Safety officers are investigating who shot up a woman’s car in the parking lot outside an apartment complex recently.

On the night of Monday, March 8, a female resident of Hutto McIver Apartments, located at 851 MLK Jr. Drive, reported that six or seven men shot her vehicle multiple times.

Officer Alton Brock observed two shots to the car’s rear windshield, one shot to a taillight and another to a rear tire.

The victim stated she had not been arguing with the men, whom she did not know, and recalled looking out the window as several of them fired into the air before turning fire upon the car.

BPS Investigator Anthony Stubbs is following up on the gunshots.

Anyone with information on the suspects is asked to call BPS at 248-2038.