Suicide victim allegedly robbed bank before death | Maryland Gazette (HometownGlenBurnie.com)

And it wasn't his first heist.

The man, identified by Prince George's County police as Andre LaVar Evans, a Churchton resident with family ties to Glen Burnie, has a long history of bank robberies in Anne Arundel - dating back to when he was just 16-years-old, according to electronic court records and Capital Gazette newspaper archives.

Police said Mr. Evans walked into the PNC bank at 1344 Crain Highway at 10:08 a.m. Thursday wearing a white scarf over his hands and face.

He approached a teller and said, "Give me the money or I'll kill you," according to a Bowie police report.

The woman put $1,497 in a white bag and handed it over. Mr. Evans allegedly took the cash and jumped into a black tow truck with turquoise lettering on the side. He did not display a weapon during the robbery, the report says.

There were two employees in the bank at the time, said Officer Henry Tippett, a Prince George's police spokesman.

Investigators linked Mr. Evans to the crime, and asked Anne Arundel police to search for "a possible bank robbery suspect" at a south county home in 5600 block of Essex Street, said Sgt. John Gilmer, a county police spokesman. The home belongs to family members of Mr. Evans' wife.

Seven minutes after county officers arrived at the modest, water-privileged home, Mr. Evans pulled up to the entrance gate of Quiet Waters Park near Annapolis and told rangers he was going to shoot himself, police said. When the rangers denied the man access, he turned the blue Ford van he was driving around and stopped the vehicle.

While rangers were on the phone with police, they heard a gunshot. Mr. Evans was pronounced dead at the scene.

The van he was driving belonged to someone else, Sgt. Gilmer said.

Fayetta Longwell, whose backyard sits a few yards from where Mr. Evans parked the van, was eating her lunch when she heard a gunshot. She said she walked to her back porch and looked around, but the woods were silent until county police cars lined up behind her home.

Though they would not elaborate on how they connected Mr. Evans to the morning bank robbery, Prince George's County police said he is their guy.

"He is the same guy who robbed the bank last Thursday," Officer Tippett said. "The investigators just said the suspect was found in Anne Arundel County by their officers and he had died by a self-inflicted gunshot wound."

He speculated that police possibly tracked him down based on the lettering on the tow truck that fled the robbery.

Mr. Evans has pleaded guilty at least twice to bank robbery in the past 15 years, electronic court records show.

In late 1993, a then 16-year-old Mr. Evans was placed under house arrest after being charged as an adult in the robbery of Washington Savings Bank on Old Mill Road in Millersville.

After his arrest, police said he confessed to six other robberies in the county, including Citizens Bank of Maryland in Annapolis and Carrollton Bank, according to newspaper archives.

Two years later, Mr. Evans was indicted for robbing four local banks that summer: Washington Federal Savings Bank in Edgewater; First Union Bank of Maryland in Parole Plaza; and the First Virginia Bank of Maryland in Edgewater. Mr. Evans later pleaded guilty to robbing the First Virginia Bank of Maryland in a plea agreement that dismissed the robbery charges at the other banks.

And in 2000 he was sentenced to 7 years and 9 months in federal prison after he admitted to five bank robberies at three banks in Parole, according to court records.

According to newspaper archives, Mr. Evans stole a total of $28,839 during a two-month robbery spree in the fall of 1999. Some of the money was recovered. He pleaded guilty of one count of bank robbery in U.S. District Court in Baltimore for robbing a First Mariner Bank on Jennifer Road in Parole.

Before his arrest, Mr. Evans led Anne Arundel, Prince George's, and Maryland State police on a high-speed chase from Parole to Washington, D.C. One of his tires blew out during the pursuit, so he dumped the vehicle and fled on foot. After family members identified him as the robber, Mr. Evans turned himself in that night.

Staff Writer Jane McHugh contributed to this story.