Police say a man has admitted to robbing four CVS stores in the Kanawha Valley - with the help of a store manager. The pair was caught after CVS employees put GPS monitoring systems in prescription pain pill bottles.
Charles "Eddie" Jacobs, 31, was charged Thursday with four counts of second-degree robbery. Police say he robbed the CVS stores on Oakwood Road, on Charleston's East End, in Dunbar and in Teays Valley. He allegedly robbed the store on Oakwood twice.
Kellie Cook, the store manager of the Oakwood Road CVS, was arrested and charged Thursday with two counts of second-degree robbery.
Cook, 41, of Dunbar, allegedly told Jacobs about the amount of prescription pills in the store on Oakwood Road, and the dates the pills were delivered to the pharmacy, according to a criminal complaint filed in Kanawha Magistrate Court against Cook.
Jacobs was already in jail Thursday, when police filed the robbery charges against him. He was arrested recently on an alleged parole violation. According to the state Division of Corrections website, Jacobs is on parole after being convicted of first-degree robbery charges in both Mingo and Logan counties.
In addition to the four Kanawha County robberies, police said a charge from an incident in Putnam County will probably be filed soon against Jacobs.
The complaint against Cook states that after CVS stores in the area had been robbed several times, store employees installed GPS monitoring systems in prescription pain pill bottles.
Employees told police this after a robbery at the CVS in Dunbar on Dec. 12.
As in the other robberies of CVS stores in the area, a white man wearing a mask to cover his face and a hooded sweatshirt entered the store with a gun and demanded prescription pills.
The GPS tracking system in the bottles sent police locations around Dunbar Avenue and then showed police suspects were heading east on Interstate 64, at a high rate of speed.
The device stopped giving police signals at the exit ramp onto MacCorkle Avenue in South Charleston, according to the complaint.
There, police found empty pill bottles, a mask and hooded sweatshirt, among other things, the complaint states.
About the same time police found evidence on the exit ramp, they learned that a car accident had occurred nearby, shortly after the CVS robbery.
A hit and run occurred on Jefferson Road. Police located Robert Scott Arthur, of South Charleston, who stated he was involved in an incident involving a gray two door car at the intersection of Jefferson Road and Washington Street, just after the CVS robbery.
The gray car struck his car and he followed the vehicle to 607 Columbia St., where he approached the driver of the car that hit him and the man that was riding with her.
They appeared nervous and looked high, Arthur told police. He wrote down their license plate number.
Police determined that the vehicle was registered to Kristy Albright of Peach Creek, Logan County. Jacobs is Albright's boyfriend, according to police.
"After an interview was conducted with Mr. Jacobs by investigators from the Charleston Police Department, Mr. Jacobs admitted to committing this robbery incident as well as all the other robberies to CVS Pharmacies in the Kanawha Valley," according to the complaint.
Jacobs "stated he used a pellet gun in the commission of all robberies," police wrote. They said the gun has not yet been recovered.
Jacobs allegedly told police that his girlfriend had driven him during the robberies. He told police that after Cook gave him information about the Oakwood Road store that he paid her $5,000 both times he robbed that store, according to the complaint.
Albright has not yet been arrested.
On Sept. 18 and Oct. 16, the CVS on Oakwood Road was robbed. The CVS at Plaza East was robbed on Nov. 5 on Charleston's East End; the store in Teays Valley on Dec. 8 and on Dec. 12, the store in Dunbar was robbed.
Charleston Police Lt. Steve Cooper said last month that police knew it was the same guy after the second robbery on Oakwood Road.
"He orders someone back to the pharmacy and orders the pharmacist to open the safe and steals a substantial number of pills," the lieutenant said.
"It's not common but it's not rare that when someone robs a store that they'll go on a spree until they're caught - until their luck runs out," Cooper previously said.
Cook is being held in South Central Regional Jail on $100,000 bond. Jacobs hadn't yet been arraigned late Thursday on the robbery charges, but an assistant Kanawha prosecutor said that would likely take place in Logan County.
Reach Kate White at kate.white@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1723 or follow @KateLWhite on Twitter.