JERSEY SHORE — A 59-year-old Harrisburg-area man, who claims to have robbed about two dozen banks in the last three decades, was arrested Wednesday night on charges of allegedly committing Tuesday afternoon’s holdup at the Jersey Shore State Bank, 115 S. Main St., according to the Tiadaghton Valley Regional police.
investigators showed a man, later identified as Robert Jones, fleeing the area of the bank in a beige-colored Toyota Camry shortly after the holdup, which occurred just before 3 p.m., police said. Officers were able to read the license plate number on the 1989 model car, which was registered to Jones, who lives in a halfway house in a township outside of Harrisburg.
Surveillance video was a critical component in leading investigators to Jones, police said.
Through their investigation, police learned that Jones signed out of the halfway house at 5:45 a.m. Tuesday and returned 12 hours later.
When law enforcement arrived at the halfway house Wednesday night with a warrant to search the Camry, Jones greeted, them saying, “I have nothing to hide. This is my final chapter.”
Tiadaghton Valley Regional Police Chief Nathan DeRemer said Jones, who is on state parole for bank robbery, “gave a full confession to robbing the bank.”
Police said that upon entering the bank, he handed a teller a note that read “This is a robbery.” He then told her, “Just remember your training,” according to an affidavit.
Inside the car, police recovered a large portion of the $5,000 taken in the holdup plus clothing Jones was wearing during the robbery, including a yellow raincoat, a beige-colored hat and medical mask, court records stated.
Jones told police that this “was the end of his road and a call for help,” stated the affidavit, prepared by Patrolman Justin Segura.
Investigators speculated that Jones was fearful of making the transition from being in a halfway house to living on his own in a community.
He told police that this wasn’t “his first bank robbery, and that he had robbed about 24 other banks starting back in the 1990s,” the affidavit stated.
Police said Jones told them he “went into the bank with no intention to harm anyone.”
Jones also said he “thought it would take three or four days to get caught, but we were much quicker,” court records stated.
He was arraigned about 11 p.m. before District Judge Denise Dieter on felony charges of robbery and theft, and committed to the Lycoming County Prison on no bail.
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