Teenager sentenced in store robbery

June 03, 1998|By MARLO BARNHART

The last of three Baltimore teenagers who took $2,901 in a 1997 armed robbery of the Conococheague Grocery Store near Clear Spring was sentenced Tuesday to five years in prison.

Sam Christopher Hacker, now 17, had nothing to say when Washington County Circuit Judge John H. McDowell pronounced sentence for one count of robbery.

Hacker was ordered to pay $1,000 in restitution once he is released from prison.

"I'm reminded of the fear these victims were feeling that day - a nightmare for those people," said McDowell, who has sentenced all three of the robbers.

On April 30, Joseph E. Hoyle was sentenced to five years in prison for robbery.

Hoyle, now 17, was 15 when he acted as the getaway driver in the Jan. 5, 1997, robbery.

After Hoyle is released, he will have to pay $967 in restitution and remain on probation for two years.

On Jan. 15, Rodney Allen Wright, 17, also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit robbery. He, too, was sentenced to serve five years in prison.

After he is released, Wright will be on probation for three years. He was ordered to pay $1,000 in restitution.

Court records showed that Wright first came to Washington County when he was committed to the Oak Hill House for troubled teens near Clear Spring in late 1996 on an unrelated matter.

He ran away from the facility on Dec. 31, 1996, and later stole a car and ended up back in Baltimore, court records said.

It was there he met up with several other youths, and together they stole another vehicle and began a series of robberies and thefts that led them back to Washington County on Jan. 5, 1997, court records said.

Maryland State Police said two ski-masked robbers entered the grocery at 14845 National Pike in Clear Spring, displayed handguns to the two clerks and demanded money. The clerks then were placed in a freezer unit.

The third person remained in the getaway car, court records said.

The charges against the three originally included armed robbery, two counts of first-degree assault, using a handgun in the commission of a felony, theft of $2,901, and conspiracy to commit robbery.

Owner Al Albert has attended every court hearing and has said the two victims will have to live with the fear the rest of their lives.

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