Wyoming authorities are still searching for a man who robbed the Lusk State Bank on Monday, and they have a photograph of him.
Lusk Police Chief Sean Dreesen said Tuesday afternoon that surveillance footage from the bank still wasn’t available, but that the man had gone into a nearby convenience store before the robbery and that 4 bank employees identified him from the store’s surveillance camera.
The man fled the bank in a pickup that had been stolen from a car lot in Idaho with dealer plates taken from a car lot in Rawlins, but he crashed shortly after the holdup near the Lusk golf course on the west edge of town. Chief Dreesen says authorities don’t know if he is on foot, hitchhiking, or has stolen another vehicle.
The man told bank employees he was armed, and even though no weapon was seen, Dreesen says he could be “armed and dangerous.”
As a result, authorities are advising the public not to approach the man…described as white 40-to-50 years old, 6-4, 165-to-175 pounds, dark hair, clean-shaven, prescription glasses, and with bad teeth.
Anyone with information about the man is asked to contact the Lusk Police Department at 307-334-2212 or the nearest FBI office.
The Lusk bank robbery was one of two in northeast Wyoming on Monday, but the suspect in the second was captured within 20 minutes of leaving the First National Bank in Afton.
56-year-old Donald Sample had fled south on Highway 89 in a red pickup, but a Wyoming Highway Patrol trooper caught up to the red pickup within minutes and followed it until backup officers arrived.
The truck was then stopped at the summit of Salt River Pass, about 15 miles south of Afton, and Sample was identified and arrested without incident. Officers recovered money and other undisclosed evidence from the pickup.
Due to the proximity to the Wyoming/Idaho State line, agencies in Idaho were also notified and were waiting at the border in case the suspect attempted to elude the trooper.