Two suspects are in custody after police said they went on a crime spree in an attempt to rob multiple gas stations in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties on July 9.<\/p>\n
Rostraver Township police said officers were called to the Marathon gas station along Route 51 shortly after midnight, where they found the clerk hiding in the kitchen of a business connected to the gas station. Police said the clerk reported two men, wearing masks, demanded money from the register, and one was armed with a machete.<\/p>\n
“The first suspect to enter the building had on what could best be described as a demon clown mask. It was a clown, but it’s an evil version of a clown. He actually had a machete with him. The second suspect that came in had his face concealed with a bright pink ski mask,” Rostraver Township Police Department detective Christopher Tretter said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tretter said the men got away with $116 and four packs of cigarettes.<\/p>\n
“It was a pretty chaotic scene. The gas station was in disarray,” Tretter said.<\/p>\n
Before that robbery, police said the suspects attempted to rob two other gas stations \u2014 a BP gas station in Pleasant Hills and a BP gas station right up the road from the Marathon in Rostraver Township.<\/p>\n
Officers went to the BP along Route 51, where they said surveillance video caught the suspects on camera.<\/p>\n
“The surveillance video was actually of such high quality that once they got back into the vehicle, they removed their masks, and I was able to pick up again very distinct facial features on one of them, which helped me identify them,” Tretter said.<\/p>\n
A few days later, Tretter said police spotted one of the suspects walking in a parking lot in Elizabeth. Tretter said the man, identified as 21-year-old Benjamin Probst, was allegedly wearing the same shoes that he wore during the robberies.<\/p>\n
Police said Probst later admitted to the robberies and identified 21-year-old Riley Coulter as the other man involved.<\/p>\n
Police said they determined the car the two suspects were seen in on surveillance was registered to Coulter, who was arrested in Finleyville.<\/p>\n
Both men face charges including robbery, simple assault and receiving stolen property.<\/p>\n
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