Buried safes of money pointed to bank robbery suspects

Monday, Oct. 6, 2008

Almost two-thirds of the $168,000 stolen during the heist at the PNC bank branch in Lexington Park has been recovered, St. Mary’s detectives report. They report that the rest was spent lavishly by the suspects, who remained in St. Mary’s after the holdup until some of them decided to move south.

‘‘We believe they gambled it away and spent it,” Lt. Rick Burris said Monday at a press conference. ‘‘It was basically to get the money and go out and splurge on whatever they felt like.”

Edwin Jonathan Jones, 40, of Lexington Park began talking several weeks ago about how he would rob a bank, court papers state, by kidnapping a manager and her children. Jones also had an address in Calvert County’s Lusby community within walking distance of the home of Latoya Booth, the PNC branch manager who was abducted outside her residence on the morning of Sept. 24, along with her 5-month-old daughter and 18-month-old son.

Jones had discussed his robbery idea with Joseph Franklin Brown, the 25-year-old Indian Bridge Road resident, according to court papers alleging Brown and William Cordell ‘‘Back Road Billy” Johnson, 28, of California initially received the money that Booth was forced to get from the bank.

She took her 5-year-old daughter inside with her, left the child with another employee while complying with the robbers’ demands, and was released with her 18-month-old son at a nearby elementary school, investigators report.

‘‘She was an innocent victim,” Burris said.

Quinita Jesse Ennis, 30, of Lexington Park was a getaway driver for the pair who carried out the abduction, court papers state, and detectives described her as a girlfriend of Brown. A catalog with her address was lying outside Brown’s home on Monday afternoon. St. Mary’s Sheriff Timothy K. Cameron said two small safes with much of the recovered $110,000 were found buried in Brown’s backyard.

A St. Mary’s judge ordered Monday that Jones and Ennis remain jailed without bond on charges including kidnapping, assault and armed robbery. Brown and Johnson were arrested and jailed in Raleigh, N.C., and detectives said they planned to travel there later Monday to question them.

JOHN WHARTON