They got ’em – Hancock Bank robbers arrested
PROTECTED CONTENT
If you’re a current subscriber, log in below. If you would like to subscribe, please click the subscribe tab above.
Username and Password Help
Please enter your email and we will send you a password reset link.
By Dave Taylor
After nearly two years, two of the three alleged suspects in the armed robbery of Hancock Bank in Lewisport have been arrested, based on DNA evidence collected after the crime.
Hardin County residents Sean Michael Curtis, 31, and Jessica Marie Howard, 29, were arrested March 4 after DNA testing on clothing items found discarded after the robbery matched the pair.
“Evidence was recovered when items were discarded by subjects heading south bound on Kentucky 657,” Hancock County Sheriff Dale Bozarth said in a press release Wednesday.
Warrants were issued and Curtis and Howard were brought from Hardin County and lodged in the Breckinridge County Detention Center, where DNA was collected from each of them to be tested to verify the match. They were also charged with first-degree robbery and other charges and held on $100,000 full cash bonds.
The two, along with a still unidentified third suspect, are alleged to have robbed the Hancock Bank & Trust Lewisport branch at around 2 p.m. on June 7, 2018, with two suspects entering the bank, one brandishing a handgun, and a third waiting in the getaway car outside.
Security footage shows one of the robbers pointing a gun at the teller and demanding money, and the two ran back out to the car after only about 45 seconds inside. The getaway car was a 2014 or newer grey Toyota Corolla with its license plate removed.
The car fled down Highway 60 and turned south on KY-657 and apparently, either purposely or on accident, the robbers tossed items of clothing out of the windows onto the road about two miles later.
This reporter, heading toward the bank scene, noticed the items and thought they might be pertinent, so I collected them and turned them over to Deputy Aaron Emmick, who was leading the investigation.
Those items, along with others found on Freesilver Road in Daviess County by Deputy B.J. Burton, were sent to the Kentucky State Police crime lab in Frankfort for testing.
That lab, like many other agencies, is backlogged, so testing didn’t begin on the items until November, and the results were returned to Emmick on February 26.
“It’s a lengthy process,” said Emmick. “It’s not like TV where you get results tomorrow.”
Since Howard and Curtis were convicted felons, their DNA was already in the nationwide system, so the testing pointed to them.
“Then what I had to do was track them down,” Emmick said.
Whether DNA on a third person was found hasn’t been released, he said, which could mean there wasn’t any, or that there was other DNA that just didn’t match anyone in the system.
My DNA was excluded after Emmick took a swab in the sheriff’s office in June 2018, to send off with the other evidence.
With just two people arrested when the security footage showed three were involved, what roles the first two had is unclear.
“That’s still under investigation,” Emmick said.
Video shows what appears to be two men entering the bank, one tall and thin and the other described by witnesses at the time as short and possibly Hispanic. In the waiting getaway car was a third person, but the footage didn’t show enough to determine even their gender.
While Emmick awaits word on leads for the third suspect, one or more of the three are also suspected in multiple other bank robberies in Kentucky that occurred at around the same time, and the local evidence is helping those cases too.
“It helped immensely,” Emmick said. “They had a potential suspect, but now based on that information it helps solidify what they were looking for.”
Curtis and Howard remain in Breckinridge County jail with identical charges of robbery first degree, wanton endangerment first degree, possession of a handgun by a felon, tampering with physical evidence, and being a persistent felony offender, all felonies.
