WILTON — A man wearing a ski mask and brandishing a gun robbed Patty’s Place, a secondhand store on Route 2, Wednesday morning, according to police. It was the second robbery in less than five years.
Owner Patty Woods was working alone in the shop, which is downstairs in the home where she and her husband live, when the suspect entered shortly after 9:30 a.m., she said.
“The door opened. It’s a business … people come and go,” she said. “I looked up and this guy was standing in front of me with a gun in my face.”
The man told her to “‘give me all your money and jewelry,'” she said.
The man took an undisclosed amount of cash and jewelry from the store, got into a dirty, dark blue car and headed west toward Dixfield, Wilcox said.
Woods was not injured.
She told police the robber was a white male wearing a black jacket and black ski mask, Wilton Police Chief Heidi Wilcox said. He was described as about 6 feet tall with a slender build.
Woods said she didn’t have a good description of the man because he was covered with clothing and didn’t talk much.
He was the only person Woods saw, Wilcox said.
Several area police agencies assisted in patrolling the area but by early afternoon the suspect had not been found, she said.
“I wish it didn’t happen. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone,” Woods said.
This is the second time Woods has experienced an armed intruder while she worked alone in the shop.
In 2006, Jeffrey Quirrion of Jay went into the shop and said he was looking for an old bean pot. When she led him to a back room to show him a selection of bean pots, he grabbed her around the neck and held a serrated knife to her head.
He eventually let her go, apologized and left the shop without taking anything. He then drove to the Wilton Police Department and told an officer what he had done.
Quirrion, 26, was convicted of robbery and criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon and sentenced to 25 years with all but seven years suspended on each charge, as well as probation for six years on each charge.
abryant@sunjournal.com
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