Crime & Safety
Lilburn PD Catches Family Dollar Robber
Inside the Police Reports: Lilburn police arrested an armed man who robbed the Family Dollar on Lawrenceville Highway last month.
The Family Dollar located at 5279 Lawrenceville Highway in Lilburn was robbed of $153 last month, but Lilburn Police were able make an arrest warrant for the suspect by June 10.
The victim and complainant, a 20-year-old Family Dollar employee, told police that the man came to the cash register to purchase a pair of flip flops around 6:40 p.m. on May 27.
The suspect, Edward W. Underwood, 45, allegedly handed the clerk $1 for the footwear, and when he opened the cash register, the suspect leaned across the counter and pointed a gun to the employee's stomach.
Find out what's happening in Lilburn-Mountain Parkwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
The robber ordered the victim to step back as he reached into the cash register to attempt to remove the cash, but failed. The suspect ended up grabbing the whole tray out of the drawer and left the store.
A female witness in the parking lot told police that she saw Underwood run out of the store with the tray of cash and realized that he was the same man who was behind her in line while shopping at Goodwill next door. She noticed he was purchasing a red and black baseball cap with the letter "G" in front, and officers nearby had seen a similar hat on the roadway of Lawrenceville Highway.
Find out what's happening in Lilburn-Mountain Parkwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Going back to the area where they saw the hat, officers saw a Hispanic man in a white van pick up the hat and drive off, but after pulling the man over, they realized he just wanted a free hat and was not involved in the burglary.
The hat, which was actually red and blue with an "A" in front, was taken as evidence and brought back to the Family Dollar to be shown to the witness. The woman said that the hat didn't match the description she gave, but after watching video surveillance of the man at Goodwill, she determined that the "A" hat was indeed the suspect's hat.
Similar to the hat, another officer noted that he found the cash tray on the side of the road, too.
The cash tray, video surveillance tapes from Family Dollar and Goodwill, the hat and fingerprints from Family Dollar's counter were all taken as evidence.
Upon further investigation, Lilburn officers were able to make the arrest June 10 for Underwood on the charge of armed robbery.
