Gun-toting bank robber identified through tapes

Published 12:00 am Friday, December 19, 2008

Police have identified a Forest man as their suspect in Thursday’s robbery of a BancorpSouth branch here and expect to have him in custody as soon as  they can find him.

Timothy Gandy, 41, 11352 Mississippi 21, was identified from bank surveillance tapes, said Vicksburg police Lt. Bobby Stewart, and is believed to have also robbed a BancorpSouth branch in Hattiesburg Wednesday at the Westwood Mall.

In both cases, clear photos from surveillance cameras were recorded and resulted in Gandy’s identification.

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Thursday’s alarm at the BancorpSouth branch on Indiana Avenue came in at 12:13 p.m. Tapes show the suspect, holding a handgun, standing at the teller’s window. He took the cash remaining on the counter from a previous transaction and fled on foot, Stewart said.

No money was taken from bank drawers or vaults, he added.

Police and dogs searched the woods off South Frontage Road for about 30 minutes but did not find the suspect. “We hope to have him soon,” Stewart said this morning.

Front doors of the bank were sealed with yellow crime-scene tape while investigators questioned employees and checked for fingerprints and other evidence.

No employees or customers were injured in the robbery, and bank officials were not available for comment this morning.

This was the fourth local bank heist this year. Three have been in the city and one in the county.

On Jan. 30, the Trustmark Bank branch at 3406 Halls Ferry Road was robbed. Kevin Dale McCain, 48, 406 W. 7th Ave., 9B, Petal, was indicted in May by the Warren County grand jury for that heist. If convicted, McCain faces a possible 10-year sentence.

McCain remains in the Warren County Jail on that charge and is also being held for Texas authorities on a charge stemming from a Jan. 25 bank robbery in Marshall, Stewart said. McCain has also been linked to an attempted bank robbery Jan. 28 in Bossier City, La., and faced a federal probation violation charge from a previous case.

A second bank robbery occurred at BancorpSouth, 3312 Pemberton Square Blvd., on May 5. A Pennsylvania couple was arrested and charged for that by the FBI, which is prosecuting the case, Stewart said.

Jarrod Darnell Smith, 36, 1509 Mauch Chunk Road, Allentown, and his wife, Shonda, no age available, have been charged by the FBI with seven counts of bank robbery in Mississippi and Pennsylvania.

In the county, the Britton and Koontz bank branch at 2059 U.S. 61 was robbed March 20. No suspects have been identified in that holdup, which also caused a 40-minute precautionary lockdown at nearby Sherman Avenue Elementary School as officers searched the woods nearby.