Kingsport police have charged a man in Sunday's robbery of the CVS on Memorial Boulevard, saying the suspect used his personal information to pick up a prescription at another location just minutes prior to the incident.
KPD Det. Terry Christian reports Curtis Milburn Cox, 50, of 301 Southwood Drive, Kingsport, is charged with aggravated robbery. He was arrested late Monday morning and booked into the city jail.
At approximately 12:30 p.m. Sunday Cox allegedly approached the pharmacy counter of the CVS on Memorial Boulevard. With his hands in his jacket pockets he reportedly told store personnel that he had a gun, demanded OxyContin, then fled with an undisclosed amount of the drug.
Det. Christian says media coverage of the robbery, which included surveillance footage of the incident, spurred information from a customer of another CVS pharmacy. They said that at around noon they had spotted the suspect pictured at the West Stone Drive location.
Detectives checked with employees of that CVS and reviewed surveillance footage, finding their suspect had a prescription filled there that same day. Christian says Cox, who has no prior criminal history, was wearing the same clothes donned in the robbery on Memorial Boulevard just 30 minutes later; white T-shirt, grey sweater jacket, red and black pajama pants, tan slippers.
With information from the filled prescription investigators visited the home of Cox on Monday morning, then his place of employment in Kingsport. Police say he was arrested at his workplace.
"This is a true example of someone being hooked on pain medications due to several back surgeries," said Christian. "He doesn't fit the profile (of a robber)."