VOLUSIA COUNTY and SEMINOLE COUNTY, Florida — Three men were arrested after a busy Wednesday afternoon during which they allegedly stole a car during a DeBary home invasion and then used the car to escape a bank robbery in Orange City.
The stolen car was abandoned nearby and the trio used another car to flee south into Seminole County. However, the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office, Orange City Police Department and DeLand Police Department tracked the suspects down to where they wrecked their getaway car on U.S. 17-92 near an Interstate 4 on ramp. The men then fled on foot but were captured within half an hour of the crash.
The crime spree started when a resident at 328 Colomba Road, DeBary called the Sheriff’s Office at 12:47 p.m. to report that two men had barged into his garage and stole his white 1995 Lincoln Town Car at gunpoint. They tied the man up using an electrical cord from a fan, shut him inside the garage and sped away. The man was not injured.
Then at 1:05 p.m. employees at TD Bank at 2240 S. Volusia Avenue, Orange City called 911 to report that they had just been robbed. (For more information about the bank robbery, please contact the Orange City Police Department.) The getaway vehicle the robbers used was a white Lincoln Town Car. Deputies and police officers quickly made the connection between the home invasion and the bank robbery and canvassed the area for the stolen car. It was found abandoned behind the Bravo Supermarket at 2413 Enterprise Road, Orange City. The suspects had switched cars in the hopes of thwarting their pursuit.
Nonetheless, law enforcement caught up to the suspects as they drove southbound on U.S. 17-92 into Seminole County. But the suspects then wrecked alongside the highway near an Interstate 4 on ramp at about 1:17 p.m. They fled on foot into the nearby woods, but law enforcement flooded the area and the three men were quickly captured. One was bitten by a police K-9 and was later transported to Central Florida Regional Hospital in Sanford for treatment. No one else – neither the suspects nor any of the victims – were injured. The Florida Highway Patrol is investigating the car accident.