How did NC cops solve two robberies so quickly? One suspect wore his ankle monitor.
The Charlotte triggerman in back-to-back February robberies of a Dollar General and a Jersey Mike’s certainly made a fashion statement: purple latex gloves, a teal handgun with a silver slide, a distinctive coat of many colors that could have come straight out of Genesis.
But it’s what the gunman’s accused accomplice wore that proved pivotal: an electronic-monitoring device.
That allowed Charlotte-Mecklenburg police to put a robbery suspect they previously identified as Terrence White within shouting distance of both crimes and break open the case, according to an FBI affidavit that became public on Tuesday. The affidavit does not identify White by name, only by his initials.
On Feb. 9, White and his ankle monitor were 400 feet away from the Dollar General on Frank Vance Road when a man in a distinctive coat pulled a gun on a store employee and got away with $160 and three packs of cigarettes, the FBI affidavit says.
The next morning, White was slightly more than 500 yards removed from the Jersey Mike’s adjoining the Homewood Suites hotel on Yorkmont Road when a robber flashing the same coat, gloves and handgun drew down on a worker and escaped with $150, the FBI affidavit says.
That set off a high-tech pursuit by CMPD — albeit a brief one. After using the signal from White’s monitoring device to place him near the hotel on Feb. 10, detectives poring through surveillance video came across a Ford Fusion with Illinois plates entering the parking lot, according to the affidavit.
The footage showed a man getting out of the back seat of the Ford and relocating to the front. The affidavit says he was wearing a multicolored coat and purple gloves.
White was arrested the next day. When police searched his phone, according to the FBI affidavit, they found a video in which an unknown male asks White at one point: “We getting money or what?”
Detectives traced the video to a phone number belonging to Travis Chislom of Charlotte. Data from the ankle device placed White some 440 feet from Chislom’s home on the days of the robberies, the FBI claims.
Chislom, 29, was arrested Feb. 23 and remains at the Mecklenburg County Jail, custody records show.
Both he and White, 30, face state charges of robbery with a deadly weapon and robbery conspiracy, according to a CMPD statement at the time of the arrests. Chislom has an additional state count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
A new complaint against Chislom from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Charlotte on Tuesday adds federal robbery and weapons charges.
As of now, no federal charges tied to the robberies have been filed against White. If they are, authorities should know where to find him.
