May 19, 2013
A North Carolina man and woman believed to be responsible for a series of bank robberies across the South are in jail.
Police said the couple robbed a bank in Dothan Thursday morning.
The SouthTrust Branch in the 2200 Block of the Ross Clark Circle was held up around 10:30 a.m. Police said a woman wearing an orange t-shirt gave a teller a note demanding money and claiming she had a weapon. She got away in a gray pick-up truck with a man behind the wheel.
A regional lookout was posted for the suspects.
The suspects apparently drove South on Highway 231. Police in Cottondale, Florida spotted them. A Jackson County deputy and Dothan police joined in the chase that followed.
Twenty-two-year-old April Wright and 25-year-old Alexander By-Gul of Westfield, North Carolina have both been charged with first-degree robbery. They're also suspects in a bank robbery that happened in Troy last week and the couple is suspected in a series of bank robberies committed in the Carolinas and Georgia. The FBI is also filing federal charges.
A hearing is scheduled Friday in Marianna to determine if the suspects will return willingly to Alabama to face charges or have to be extradited.
The only weapon found on the suspects was a knife.
Police believe all of the money taken in Thursday's robbery in Dothan has been recovered, but they said the suspects may have stolen more than $15,000 in recent weeks.
