DNA on soda bottle helped lead to arrest in 2015 Mercersburg robbery

(Mercersburg) — Police have linked a man to the armed robbery of a jewelry store through an empty soda bottle found on the floor of the getaway car.

Mercersburg Police Department on Friday charged Kevin Jade Combs, 40, of Scranton and formerly of New York, for his alleged role in the robbery of Snider’s Jewelers nearly three years ago. He did not post $500,000 bond and was jailed.

Findings of a 2017 Franklin County grand jury were attached to the court documents charging Combs. They reveal details of the police investigation. Police pieced together an anonymous tip, cell phone records and interviews to develop a list of three suspects.

Two masked and gloved men broke display cases at Snider’s Jewlers, 339 N. Main St., on Nov. 19, 2015, and made off with $30,472 worth of jewelry, according to the grand jury presentment. A video showed one of the men pointing a black and silver semi-automatic handgun at store owner Ty Snider.

Another video shot before the robbery showed one of the men getting out of the car that was used in the robbery and slashing the right front tire of a police vehicle with a knife, according to the grand jury.  The knife fell from one of the men’s jacket pockets inside the jewelry store.

The getaway car, a bronze 2010 Chevrolet Malibu, was found outside Mercersburg on the same day as the robbery, according to the grand jury. The car had been stolen 10 days earlier in Richmond, Virginia. A Pennsylvania State Police forensic examiner found fingerprints and DNA evidence in the car as well as a jewelry tag from Snider’s store and an empty 20-ounce Pepsi bottle with a screw-top lid. A two-tone semi-automatic pistol that had been in the car when it was stolen has not been recovered.

On Nov. 14, 2016, nearly a year after the robbery, the Pennsylvania State Police Laboratory advised investigators that the DNA found on the bottle belonged to Combs, according to the grand jury. The next day, an anonymous man called Franklin County Crime Stoppers and the Mercersburg police. The man gave details about three men and a woman involved in the robbery. He said one man was related to him and had served time with one of the other men.

Police found the caller and on Nov. 22, 2016, interviewed him, according to the grand jury. He named three suspects. The man said his relative had asked him to participate in a robbery of a jewelry store, but he had declined. The man said that on the next day a woman drove up to his home with his relative and Combs, “the guy from New York.” The two men went inside and changed clothes. They had the jewelry from the robbery. A third man was in Mercersburg.

The informant also said Davis told him that the glass tops of the display cases would not break, so they had to turn them over, according to the grand jury.  A video from the jewelry store showed that the robbers failed to break the glass on the display cases and turned them over. “This was not public knowledge.”

Police interviewed the woman who had driven the car, according to the grand jury. She gave further details about what the men did after the robbery. Police used Oxygen software to forensically examine, undelete and save text messages and photos that she had deleted from view on her cell phone. Phone records also led police to interview two additional people.

Police obtained search warrants to investigate records of several cell phones, according to the grand jury. Phone calls connected the suspects to each other in the days before and after the robbery. The records also placed the suspects near the jewelry shop at the time of the robbery and revealed where they traveled.

The informant said that Combs took the jewelry to New York to pawn it and did not share the proceeds, according to the grand jury. Phone records show that Combs went to New York on the night of the robbery.

Police interviewed the informant’s relative who identified Combs as a man named Chance he had known in jail.

Combs is charged with the felony counts of robbery, conspiracy to commit robbery, theft and receiving stolen property.

Court records indicate that Combs is 40 years old while the grand jury record indicates he is 38. Both give the same birthday.

His preliminary hearing is set for 8:15 a.m. on July 24 in Franklin County Central Court in the county courthouse.

This article is part of a content-sharing partnership between WITF and Public Opinion Online.