Traverse City Record-Eagle

Elmwood Township

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  • Tyler Sipe

    Cherry Bend Grocery
December 30, 2007

Man allegedly robs Elmwood Township store

Off-duty chief follows tracks through snow

BY MELISSA DOMSIC

GREILICKVILLE -- It seemed like a good deed, giving a ride to a stranded motorist on a cold, snowy evening.

What Shaun Dean didn't know was that the man she offered to help Friday evening allegedly had just robbed nearby Cherry Bend Grocery store at knife point.

Dean and her daughter were about to get into their car and drive the man to downtown Traverse City when an off-duty police officer who lives nearby stepped in and arrested the man.

"It was pretty frightening, of course," Dean said. "It's like watching something unfold like you would see on TV; you don't expect that to happen."

Dean arrived at her home on Sylvia Street in Elmwood Township after work Friday evening when she saw a man who appeared to be in his early 20s walking down the road. He asked to use her phone to call a taxi because his car was stuck in a ditch, she said.

Dean retrieved her phone from inside and dialed a taxi for him while he waited on the porch. The man, who said his name was Mike, told Dean the taxi wouldn't show up for another half-hour.

"I said, 'I'll take you down there,' because it was snowing really hard and I didn't want him coming in my house," she said.

But before Dean and her daughter, Sheana Kilbourne, got in the car, off-duty Suttons Bay police Chief Del Moore came to the house and asked where they were headed.

"I looked at the guy and I said, 'Did you do something?' and he said, 'No,'" Dean said.

Moore, who lives a couple blocks away, had received a phone call from store owner Dan Plamondon and tracked footprints in the fresh snow to find the suspect, she said.

Moore drew his gun and arrested the man. Police didn't find the cash or knife, she said.

Dean and Kilbourne were scared to think they could have climbed into the car with an armed man.

"The grace of God I guess was looking over us," Kilbourne said.

Plamondon declined to comment.

Leelanau County sheriff's officials are investigating.

Officials did not release the amount of money stolen, but said the man left with the contents of the cash register and a six-pack of beer.

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