By Davi Stuhlsatz

MULVANE – Two store employees were assaulted and an unknown amount of cash was taken in a robbery of the Dillons store about 4:25 a.m. on Sunday.

“One employee was in the store, getting ready to open when someone rang at the back door,” said Dave Williams, police chief. “It was dark, but he looked out and saw someone holding a tray like a bread tray, so he thought it was a vendor and opened the door.”

Williams said the man was not a vendor, but a robber. He came in the door, closely followed by a second robber, assaulted the employee, knocked him to the ground and then locked him in the cooler.

Following these events at the back of the store, a second Dillons employee entered the front of the store and prepared for opening by unlocking the safe.

“The robbers surprised him, assaulted him and started unloading cash out of the safe,” said Williams. “The second employee was tied up.”

A third employee who purportedly arrived for work rang the back door and was let into the building by the robbers, said Williams.

“In our opinion, that employee had something to do with the crime,” he said. “There was interaction between him and the robbers that indicated they knew each other, and he was not assaulted.”

Williams said the third employee then went outside and around to the front of the store and knocked on the glass. The employee who had been tied up escaped and let him in the store. The third employee then went to the back of the store to free the employee locked in the cooler.

“That last employee allowed in was booked for suspicion of aggravated robbery,” said Williams. 

Williams said that although the first two robbers to enter the building wore masks, police have store videotape of the robbery, fingerprints, DNA and trace evidence to aid in the investigation. He also said they may know one of the two masked robbers.

The two employees did not require emergency medical services, but did seek medical treatment on their own later, Williams said.