East Calais General Store targeted again
EAST CALAIS – A tiny general store in the outskirts of central Vermont has been targeted by thieves for the second time in less than a week.
On Thursday evening, a masked man wielding a gun walked into the East Calais General Store and demanded money from the register, according to the store clerk. He left the store with $1,400 after cutting the phone cord and kicking the clerk's 4-month-old daughter across the floor in her car seat, she said.
Early Sunday morning, the same clerk, Darci Herdling, entered the store and found a note demanding money, police said. The note, apparently left sometime overnight, included instructions "on what to do," police said.
"I can't elaborate on what the note said," Lt. Paul White with the Vermont State Police said.
White also would not say whether Herdling complied with the demands before police became involved. But he said the incident Sunday was not nearly as serious as the robbery reported on Thursday.
"I don't want to minimize the seriousness of the offense, but it wasn't a situation where someone came into the store with a gun on two separate occasions," White said. Herdling detailed her ordeal with the robbery in an interview with The Times Argus last week. The gunman, she said, ordered her into the back of the store, refusing to let her take baby Cheyenne Rose with her, swore at her and threatened her and the baby. She said she immediately began following his instructions to move to the back of the store.
"I thought he was leaving and I turned around to come get my baby. He came at me and got in between me and her, pointed the gun at her head, pointed it at mine, pointed it at her," Herdling said. "Then he kicked her across the deli floor."
White said he empathized with residents' angst but noted that the events were not reason to believe the town is under siege.
"It does cause us to be a little more vigilant," White said. "But I don't want people to think that because of these two incidents in East Calais that suddenly a crime spree is going on."
East Calais General Store targeted again: Times Argus Online
