Evidence Division-Crime Scene
Convenience Store Robbery
    
March 31, 2004 2:45 pm.
Officers respond to a convenience store Robbery where 2 suspects produced a handgun, demanded money, and fled the store. Responding officers check the area and are unable to locate the 2 suspects.
The store clerk is contacted and describes how the suspects entered the store pretended to buy 2 cans of beer, prior to producing a gun and robbing the clerk. The suspects leave without the beer.
Digital Surveillance video capturing incident. Several cameras inside the store captured different angles which assisted the Alton Police Department with identifying the suspects. Press play button over image to playback the video. |
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The Police enhance the video of the suspects and observe that the suspect without the gun has a band-aide on the side of his neck, this also described by the victim. Officers are aware that the East Alton Police Department was conducting an armed Robbery investigation similar to this investigation and one of the suspects in the East Alton robbery was described to have a spider tattoo on the side of his neck.
 The Scene is processed and Latent Finger prints are obtained from the 2 beer cans that the suspects left on the counter. The video is aired on local News channels, and two names surface from callers, who believe they recognize the suspects. Police show photo line-ups of the two named suspects and the witness positively identifies both. Police note that one of the suspects identified has a spider tattoo on the side of his neck in the same area covered by the band aide in the video. The Fingerprints obtained from the 2 beer cans are submitted to the Illinois State Police Crime Lab, along with the fingerprints of both suspects, and a positive identification is made with the fingerprints of Montez O Pearson as being the prints on the cans.
After obtaining positive identification of both suspects, Photo line up, video of crime, and positive identification of the fingerprints on the beer cans, The Madison County States Attorneys Office, issue a criminal information charging Montez Pearson and Paul Henderson with Armed Robbery, and a warrant is issued for their arrest.
 The Police obtain information from anonymous sources that both Pearson and Henderson are in an apartment. Officers check the apartment and find Henderson in the process of cutting his hair to alter his appearance and avoid capture. Officers then locate Pearson who to avoid capture has disguised himself as a female. Both subjects are taken into custody and transported to police headquarters.
After transporting both subjects to Police headquarters they were each interviewed as to their involvement in the Convenience Store Robbery, Henderson gave a written statement admitting his involvement and that he was with Pearson during the Robbery, Henderson no longer had a band aide on his neck, there was no sign of an injury, just the tattoo of a spider.
Pearson maintained that he had never been inside the Convenience Store, Did not know any thing about the gun recovered at the apartment, and denied the fingerprints on the beer cans were his. Pearson maintained that he was not on the Store video. Both subjects would later plea guilty to robbery, and Pearson was sentenced to 10 years and Henderson to 8 Years in the Department of Corrections.
Montez Pearson
10 Years Prison
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Paul Henderson
8 Years Prison
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