One criminal in New Hampshire chose the wrong night to try and run from police. His footsteps in Monday night's fresh snow lead officers right to him after he allegedly robbed a Rochester gas station and assaulted the clerk.
Zachary Robinson, 22, of Dover is making headlines, not for the crime he allegedly committed, but for the way he was caught.
"He is a stupid person," said Rochester resident Charles Healey.
His neighbor Beatrice Libby agreed, saying, "Pretty numb, pretty numb."
Police say Robinson robbed the Rochester Circle K, attacked a clerk, and then tried to escape, but mother nature had a different plan.
His footsteps disrupted the fresh layer of snow on the ground like a trail of breadcrumbs for officers who swarmed the area just after midnight.
Those footprints lead police less than a quarter mile away, near the State DOT shed off Cemetery Road, and into the woods where Robinson had stopped running and was sitting at the base of a tree.
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"He wasn't very smart to do it in the snow," said another resident Megan Fanslau.
Police arrested Robinson without incident and say he admitted to punching the young female clerk, stealing her iPhone, and swiping some money, cigarettes and lottery tickets from the store. He's being held at the Strafford County Jail on $25,000 cash bail. Nearby residents are frustrated, saying this isn't the first time something like this has happened around here.
"It's probably the third one this month," Healey said. "Before it wasn't attacks, now they're getting rough."
Healey and others are hoping this story will discourage would-be robbers to think twice... at least through the winter.
"I'm happy that it happened, I am glad they got him," Libby said.
The female Circle K clerk posted on Facebook not long after the attack. She wrote that she has an egg on her head, a bruised knee, and a swollen elbow, but other than that, she says she is doing okay.
Robinson is due back in court on Dec. 10.
