FREEPORT – A truck used as a getaway vehicle in an afternoon bank robbery Friday had been stolen from Center Street in Auburn hours before, police said Friday night.
Police and federal investigators were searching for two people in connection with the heist during which bank employees and customers were threatened with a gun and forced to lie on the floor.
It happened at Norway Savings Bank on Mallett Drive about 1:45 p.m., police said, when a man walked into the bank and pulled out a gun. Two bank employees and two customers were ordered to the floor while the gunman waited for a teller to fill a green bank bag with cash, said Maine Department of Public Safety spokesman Stephen McCausland.
No shots were fired during the stick-up. A bank security camera captured images of the man as he fled from the building. Police said the robber ran outside and climbed into a red Dodge pickup truck with somebody else behind the wheel.
Freeport police responded as the pickup truck sped from Mallett Drive and onto Route 125. Minutes later, the pickup truck stopped in a driveway and the two suspects got out of the vehicle. McCausland said the pair then got into a second car, a gray or bronze-colored Volkswagen Golf, and sped away.
Police believe the Volkswagen had been parked in that location as the robbery was being planned. The driver of the car briefly lost control and crashed, causing damage to the driver’s side door of the car, before speeding away again on Route 125, McCausland said.
Maine State Police and county deputies quickly joined the search for the pair. There were reports that the car was seen heading into Durham and toward Auburn when police lost sight of it.
Later in the day, as the hunt for the robber and his accomplice continued, two FBI agents from the Portland office joined the investigation. Around the same time, a man in Auburn reported that his red pickup truck was not where he had left it the night before, according to McCausland.
He said that man had parked the Dodge along Center Street and had left the keys in the vehicle Thursday night. Police believe it was stolen either late the same evening or early Friday morning.
By late Friday, police were circulating photos of the man who held up Norway Savings Bank. In one photo, the man is wearing a ski mask and sunglasses with a sweatshirt hood pulled over his head. Witnesses described the man as appearing to be in his 20s or early 30s.
It was not disclosed how much money was taken in the heist. Evidence was collected inside and outside the bank as the investigation continues. Anyone with information is asked to call Maine State Police at (800) 482-0730.
Comments are no longer available on this story