Crime & Safety

Arrests Made in Armored Car Robberies in Ellicott City, Silver Spring

The robberies occurred in December, April.

Two men accused of robbing armored car employees in Howard County and Montgomery County have been arrested.

The suspects have been identified as David Marquise Howard, 26, of the 1400 block of Quinwood Street in Hyattsville, and Charles Larry Hilton, 23, of the 9300 block of Vanguard Court in Owings Mills, according to the Montgomery County Police Department.

Police say Howard and Hilton robbed an armored car in Ellicott City on Dec. 27, 2010, and an armored car in front of a bank in Silver Spring on April 4, 2011.

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Both have been charged in the Howard County case with one count each of armed robbery, robbery, first-degree assault, second-degree assault, theft and using a handgun to commit a felony, according to police.  Hilton is facing additional charges of reckless endangerment and conspiracy to commit armed robbery, police said.

They are also facing charges from the Montgomery County case: one count of armed robbery and one count of conspiracy to commit armed robbery, police said.

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Howard is being held on $250,000 bail at the Montgomery County Detention Center in Rockville, police said. Hilton is out on $500,000 bail.

Their arrests stemmed from the investigation of the Silver Spring case, in which a Dunbar armored car guard was robbed at a Bank of America on the 11400 block of Old Columbia Pike, according to police. The guard’s handgun was also taken, The Washington Post reported.

Montgomery County police said detectives identified Howard and Hilton as suspects, and then worked with the Howard County Police Department and the FBI to build a case against the men for both robberies.

In the Howard County robbery, a carrier with Dunbar was returning to his vehicle with a deposit from the grocery store on Dorsey Hall Drive when a man with a gun approached him, Howard County police said at the time.

The suspect robbed the carrier and left in a Nissan Sentra, according to police. Neither the carrier, nor another Dunbar employee who stayed in the vehicle, was injured. Police say employees appeared to have followed robbery protocols.

The employees and several witnesses to the robbery called police and described the suspect and his car. The car was found in a nearby residential area; the suspect was not.

"We had some limited information on our suspect and a getaway vehicle that did not develop into identifying anyone," said Elizabeth Schroen, spokeswoman for the Howard County Police Department.

But crime analysts and detectives at area police departments routinely correspond with each other about regional trends. In these cases, that interaction helped lead to the suspects being arrested, Schroen said.

"When we see something as unusual as an armored truck robbery and have multiple instances in the same region, we definitely look at them to see if they’re related," she said.


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