Crime & Safety

Masked Gunman Strikes Again

A beauty supply shop was robbed today, the latest in a string of very similar incidents.

A man who may be behind at least 40 armed robberies in Southwest Riverside County struck again today.

The robbery happened around 5:30 p.m. at Cosmo Prof, a beauty supply store at 39825 Alta Murrieta Dr., according to a dispatcher.

The suspect is known for walking into businesses with his T-shirt or a cloth covering his face, forcing employees into the back room, emptying the cash register and walking away.

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Today’s incident matched that description, according to witnesses. The gunman entered Cosmo Prof with his T-shirt covering his face, pulled out a black handgun, forced three employees into the restroom and told them to stay there for 10 minutes, said family members who talked to the victims on the telephone shortly after the robbery.

They called police about three minutes after the suspect left. The amount of money taken was unknown today, said Murrieta Police Lt. Tony Conrad.

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The suspect strolled in and out of the store unnoticed, said several witnesses who were in the parking lot during the robbery.

“I didn’t see anything, and I’m so careful. There had to be somebody who saw it,” said Kathy Bearse, who was chatting with a friend waiting for her daughter to finish dance lessons in a nearby studio. “People come in and out of the dance studio all the time.”

The suspect was described as a Hispanic male in his 30s, 5 feet 8 inches tall with light-colored brown eyes.

The robber’s speech is distinctive, said one employee of the business, who was shaken up after the robbery and asked not to be identified. “He totally had that east LA accent,” she said.

Deputies questioned a man standing on a corner nearby on Murrieta Hot Springs Road who matched the description around 6 p.m., but decided he wasn’t the suspect and let him go, a sheriff’s dispatcher said.

The suspect escaped through the front door, not the back, because the employees would have heard the back door opening, she said.

Most of the robberies were in the Interstate 15-215 corridor. Investigators suspect he robbed two shops in Temecula on Feb. 12 and 13: Supercuts, a hair salon at 29910 Murrieta Hot Springs and , a sandwich shop at 40315 Winchester Road.

The most recent robbery in which the masked gunman was suspected was at the Juice It Up! on Clinton Keith Road in Murrieta. It was the second time the suspect robbed it.

"This guy is our series guy," Conrad said. "This one was pretty typical."
Several law enforcement agencies are working on the case, Conrad said. "We are doing as many things as we can, throwing every resource we can at it."

The gunman left his victims uninjured so far, but the emotional trauma is serious, victims’ parents said. Half an hour after the robbery, the door swung open and one of the victims walked out crying and hugged her mother.

“She just called me all crying and said I just got held up at gunpoint,” the mother said. 

Police interviewed drivers leaving the busy shopping center, hoping someone saw something.

Witnesses told investigators the suspect was talking on a cell phone possibly to a getaway driver. Police believe the suspect picks businesses that are close to a freeway exit for a quick getaway.

In the previous robberies matching this description, only one or two employees were in the store. Three employees were working at Cosmo Prof, but only one was visible when the suspect walked in, witnesses said.

The robberies may be a sad sign of tough times, said the father of one victim.

“A lot you have to blame on the economy,” he said. “People are doing desperate things.”


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