Shaken victims describe encounters with St. Paul armed robber: Shaken victims tell of encounters with armed robber [Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.]

Jan. 6--An armed robber has been wreaking havoc in the shadow of the state Capitol.

--A 27-year-old man was shot Monday. The robber approached him as he left his St. Paul apartment building to warm his vehicle, demanded money and shot him twice. "They were death cries," said Pablo Chavez, a neighbor who heard the shots and the victim's cries. "Death was near. Those cries made me fearful to go outside." The man was hospitalized and is expected to survive.

--Jose Hernandez, 36, was robbed four days before Christmas of money he had saved to buy presents for his three youngest children. The out-of-work sushi chef said he had to buy smaller gifts.

--Jim Benson, 51, had just cashed his fiancee's disability insurance check when the robber struck Saturday. Without the money, Benson and Jenna Cook, who met nearly three years ago when they were homeless, say they're on the verge of homelessness again.

St. Paul police said Monday that they believe the same man is behind eight street robberies, involving about a dozen victims, in a small area near University Avenue and Rice Street from Dec. 5 to Monday. Police say they're concerned that the robber has escalated his behavior by shooting Monday's victim.

"Now, he's got to the point that he's shooting people over nothing," said Aaronalisa Curry, whose Dec. 8 robbery is believed to be part of the spree. "I hope they catch the guy before he kills someone."

Two men approached Curry, 30, as she walked on Charles Avenue

to a Rice Street market about 8:30 p.m.

"One guy put a gun in my face and the other went through my pockets," she recalled Tuesday. She says she avoids going out at night and is trying to move out of the neighborhood.

In two of the eight cases, including Curry's, there were two robbers. In the other case, also on Dec. 8, two women were robbed a block away on Sherburne Avenue, at 8:47 p.m.

On Dec. 11, the Ramsey County attorney's office charged Robert Lee Wright Jr., 20, of St. Paul,

with first-degree robbery in the second Dec. 8 case. Police said Monday that Wright has not provided information to help them find the other alleged robber.

A "concerned citizen" in the area told police Dec. 9 that he had overheard a man bragging about committing robberies around Rice Street and Sherburne Avenue, the criminal complaint said.

The citizen said the man had been arrested earlier in the year for robbing a Rice Street liquor store.

Police checked records and found Wright had been convicted in the liquor store robbery and was on probation. The Dec. 8 victims identified Wright in a photo lineup, the complaint said.

Officers arrested Wright, who remains jailed, though he denied committing the robbery, the complaint said.

Monday's shooting and two earlier robberies occurred outside the Como Place Apartments, 195 Edmund Ave. A female victim Dec. 28 said the robber wore a black-and-white mask like one in the "Scary Movie" films and pointed a gun at her head, a police incident report said.

Benson was robbed after he walked back to his fiancee's home from the Holiday gas station on Rice Street, near Como Avenue. Cook's neighbor, Constance Ellison, also believes the robber followed her and her 39-year-old daughter from the same gas station Dec. 10.

Ellison, 56, said that as mother and daughter walked, the man came behind them, cocked his gun and said, "Bitches, empty your pockets." The women told the man they didn't have money and he left, Ellison said.

Benson said he didn't know Ellison had been robbed under similar circumstances until after it happened to him Saturday.

Benson said that when the robber pointed the gun at him, "My stomach dropped. It was very unsettling staring down the barrel of a gun." In addition to Cook's money for the month, the robber also got away with a $210 money order, Benson said.

"It's going to be a very, very rough month," Cook said. "But we're both thanking God that Jim wasn't hurt."

Julio Ojeda-Zapata contributed to this report. Mara H. Gottfried can be reached at 651-228-5262.

--To see a surveillance photo of the robber, go to twincities.com.

--Police ask anyone with information to call 651-291-1111. Suspect description: black man, 20 to 25 years old, 5 feet 4 inches to 5 feet 7 inches tall, medium build. In most of the incidents, he has worn dark-colored pants with a dark-colored hood, possibly plaid, pulled over his head.

To see more of the Pioneer Press, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.twincities.com.

Copyright (c) 2010, Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.

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