Suspect arrested in Cairo bank robbery, homicide

Police arrested a suspect Thursday night after a bank robbery and homicide led to a pursuit and then an apparent standoff in Cairo, Illinois.

Details were sketchy, but police scanner traffic told the story as it unfolded.

About 5:15 p.m., a man robbed the First National Bank at Eighth and Washington streets in Cairo.

By 6:30 p.m., an Illinois State Police dispatcher issued a bulletin advising officers the suspect, who last had been seen in a white 2014 Buick with Illinois license plates, was wanted for bank robbery and homicide and should be considered armed and dangerous. She said he had a handgun and knife.

About an hour later, the suspect reportedly was seen exiting from Interstate 57.

At 8:16 p.m., the Southern Illinoisan newspaper reported U.S. 51 leading into Cairo had been closed.

Authorities then spotted the suspect on Levee Road in Cairo, which runs parallel to the Mississippi River on the west side of town.

A dispatcher called for officers to set up a perimeter near the levee, where the suspect bailed out of the vehicle, abandoning it at a railroad bridge, and fled on foot.

Scanner traffic indicated officers from Illinois State Police District 22 were on the scene, searching for the suspect near some grain bins and a wooded area north of the levee.

A few minutes later, a dispatcher advised officers to "lock down and get to cover" because the suspect had a gun to his head.

The scanner was quiet until about 9:20 p.m., when dispatchers on multiple channels called off the earlier bulletin and announced the suspect and vehicle had been located and the suspect was in custody.

Reached by telephone Thursday night, Alexander County Coroner Willy Bingham was outside the bank but had little information, because officers from multiple agencies -- including the FBI -- were processing the crime scene and had instructed him to "hold back" until they called him in.

"They've got me sitting back away from the bank," Bingham said.

He did not know who had been killed, how many victims there might be or exactly where they were.

The Southern Illinoisan reported late Thursday that a relative of one woman in the bank said she had died and another woman was hospitalized with stab wounds.

A dispatcher at the Cairo Police Department said he could not release any information Thursday evening. Alexander County Sheriff Tim Brown did not immediately respond to messages left on his cellphone.

epriddy@semissourian.com

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