Two Central Virginia men were arrested Saturday in connection with the robbery of the Bank of Charlotte County branch in Keysville on Wednesday morning.
Robert Dale Cox, 21, of Forest and Michael Pickeral, 29, of Lynchburg, were charged with armed robbery and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony.
"We had a lot of cooperation from the Bedford County Sheriff's Department and the Lynchburg police in this," said Cpt. Howard Hobgood of the Charlotte County Sheriff's Department. "They offered their assistance right at the beginning."
Hobgood said one of the two men entered the bank just after 10 a.m. Wednesday armed with an automatic pistol and demanded money. He was described as 5-foot-7, 165 pounds, wearing a camouflage mask. On the bank's surveillance video, the gunman appears to be talking on a cell phone as he is leveling his weapon at the teller.
"When the man ran out of the bank," Hobgood said, "he got into a red Honda Civic that was parked at a nearby business. That business' surveillance camera picked it up."
That image provided a license plate number and a description of the driver as a "white male with a shaved head and eyebrow piercing." A nearby school was put on lockdown after the robbery.
Hobgood said the same bank was robbed several years ago, and two men were convicted of that crime.
Cox was arrested Saturday morning in Forest, Pickeral in Lynchburg. Both arrests came without incident, Hobgood said.
Copyright 2011 - The News & Advance, Lynchburg, Va.
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
