
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, April 5, 1990                   TAG: 9004041225
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B6   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: NEAL THOMPSON NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG                                LENGTH: Short

TWO CHARGED WITH ROBBERY AT STORE

A Giles County man and a juvenile were arrested Wednesday and charged with hitting a convenience store clerk in the head with a pipe and making off with a case of beer last month.

Mark Wayne Higgs, 22, of Curve Road in Pearisburg was arrested about 11:30 a.m. on Radford Road, Christiansburg police Lt. Doug Marrs said. Higgs was being held in the Montgomery County Jail.

The juvenile, also from Pearisburg, had been arrested about an hour earlier after police brought him in for questioning. He was being held in the New River Valley Juvenile Detention Home, Marrs said.

Bond for the two suspects had not yet been set, he said.

Both were charged with robbery and malicious wounding in connection with the March 1 robbery of the C-Mart gas station and convenience store at 355 Radford Road in Christiansburg.

Marrs said a man and a juvenile entered the C-Mart about 9:30 that night while one clerk was on duty. The two went to the back of the store and got two 12-packs of beer out of a cooler.

"They came back to the cash register as if they were going to pay, and one of them took out a pipe and hit the clerk in the head," Marrs said. "Then they both ran out the door, one of them taking the beer with him."

The female clerk, whom police would not identify, was taken to Montgomery Regional Hospital and treated for a head wound. Marrs said the clerk gave a description of the two suspects.

by CNB