Couple wanted in Alabama crime spree now sought in Georgia abduction, robbery
By Carol Robinson | crobinson@al.com The Birmingham News Email the author | Follow on Twitter on February 02, 2016 at 8:32 AM, updated February 02, 2016 at 9:20 AM
Vestavia Hills, AL
A Missouri couple on the run after two abductions and a robbery attempt in Alabama on Sunday is believed to have struck in Georgia Monday night.
A clerk in the city of Perry was abducted during a holdup at a gas station/convenience store there, police confirm. The clerk was later released unharmed, just like the victims abducted in Tuscaloosa and Vestavia Hills. Police believe the suspects were still in the silver Ford Edge stolen out of Vestavia Hills.
The holdup happened at 11:04 p.m. at the Murphy Express on Sam Nunn Boulevard. They took the female clerk about 15 miles south on Interstate 75 and dropped her off at another exit.
Georgia police have now joined the U.S. Marshals and police from three Alabama cities in the search for Blake Fitzgerald and Brittany Harper, both 30. The U.S. Marshal's Service is offering a $5,000 reward for the capture of each, for a total of $10,000.
"I don't know whether to label them desperate or brazen or a little of both,'' Vestavia Hills police Lt. Kevin York said this morning. "They continue to do what they've been doing all along and that is robbing and abducting and, as they go, they continue to amass serious felony charges."
The pair is charged in the abduction and hotel robbery in Tuscaloosa, an attempted robbery of a McDonald's manager in Hoover, and the home invasion and abduction of a Vestavia Hills woman, all within a two-hour span Sunday morning.
Vestavia woman abducted during morning home invasion
The woman was released unharmed at Grandview Medical Center, and police are now saying the crime is linked to similar crimes in Hoover and Tuscaloosa.
Police said the crime spree began about 6 a.m. when Fitzgerald and Harper stopped at the Microtel Inn and Suites in Tuscaloosa. A 26-year-old hotel employee was abducted from the lobby, and forced at gunpoint into his girlfriend's car, a black Volkswagon Jetta, that he had driven to work that morning.
Initially the victim was told that they were only going to get gas, but instead they ended up in Jefferson County. Police in Tuscaloosa said they were made aware of the crime there when the dayshift clerk arrived at work and the overnight clerk wasn't there. The money in the cash register was missing.
Officers began to review security video and discovered the robbery and kidnapping. While they were investigating, they received word from Vestavia Hills police that the 26-year-old clerk had been found unharmed.
"He starts coming directly at my car trying to flag me down. I rolled down my window down and he asked if he had cell phone,'' Graves said Sunday. "He said, 'I was kidnapped in Tuscaloosa and they brought me here, dropped me off.'''
Graves said he then called 911 for the victim and started talking to the dispatcher. He told Graves the suspects hid him under a blanket in the Jetta while they carried out the attempted robbery in Hoover. "It was crazy,'' Graves said. "He was a little frantic and kept saying, 'you can't make this up.'''
Graves waited with the victim until police arrived and then went on to catch his flight to Atlanta, and then Kenya. "I was just kind of freaking out the whole time,'' Graves said.
Within 15 minutes of the Hoover attempted robbery, and less than a block away from where the Tuscaloosa victim sought help, a Vestavia Hills woman eating breakfast with her family before church this morning was abducted.
Police and family said the woman and her family were preparing for church when a gunman, later identified as Fitzgerald, entered the home on Monte Vista drive about 7:45 a.m. through an opened garage door and went upstairs into the home. He told the family he was having car trouble. He then pulled a gun and demanded the keys to the family's vehicle. When the husband went to call 911, the gunman took the keys to the family's 2010 silver Ford Edge.
He then forced the wife into the vehicle, and a female accomplice joined them, York said. They drove east on Highway 280 and dropped the victim off at or near the Grandview Emergency Room entrance. The woman flagged down a passerby who then brought her home, York said.
Lt. Kevin York said the family was not specifically targeted, and it was simply a crime of opportunity.
There were children home at the time, but the victim's father said they were unharmed and hopefully too young to realize what happened. Dennis Dawson said he received a call from his daughter this morning and she said, "Daddy, I've been kidnapped,'' Dawson told AL.com. He got in his car and rushed to Vestavia Hills to be with his daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren.
He said his daughter was on the phone with police the entire time and they were at her house waiting for her when she got home. "This is a nice neighborhood and bad things don't usually happen here,'' an emotional Dawson said. "But she is safe, the kids are safe. God took care of them."
The Vestavia Hills woman posted this statement on her Facebook page Sunday evening: "Today has been the worst day of my families life. Being kidnapped and separated from my family not knowing what was going to happen to me. I prayed to God to save me but to keep my family safe as well. My cousin shared this with me today through all this: 'As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive." -Genesis 50:20'
"The out pouring of love for all of us leaves us without words. There is going to be a recovery time, but God will get us through. Thank You to the Vestavia Police Department. Our gratitude for you will never be able to be put into words."
York said investigators have not yet determined whether there was any criminal activity before the suspects reached Alabama, or after the Vestavia Hills crime. He said they have no yet heard reports of any additional crimes. Police in Vestavia Hills, Hoover and Tuscaloosa announced charges against the pair on Monday.
U.S. Marshals offer $10k for couple sought in abductions
Blake Fitzgerald and Brittany Harper, both 30, are now charged in Tuscaloosa and Vestavia Hills in two abuctions and robberies.
It's not Fitzgerald's first brush with the law. He was arrested in Missouri in 2013 after police say he and another man robbed a 63-year-old woman at knifepoint, and again last year. He is currently on probation in Missouri. Fitzgerald was charged in Jasper County Missouri in 2013 with felony first-degree burglary, vehicle tampering and theft. Police responded to the reported burglary at 2:21 a.m., according to The Joplin Globe. The 63-year-old female victim said the intruders were wearing cloth masks, broke into the house and robbed her at knife point, taking prescription medicine, cash and electronic equipment. They left in the victim's vehicle.
According to the Missouri publication, Fitzgerald was also arrested on a drunken-driving accident injured two people and destroyed a fence. The Joplin Globe said he received "shock prison time" in those cases. Shock imprisonment is a boot-camp type of program as an alternative to prison geared toward rehabilitation.
Last year, he received a suspended imposition of sentence for felony assault of another man at a nightclub. In that case, he pleaded guilty to second-degree assault in a plea agreement allowing probation but requiring the defendant to pay the victim's $17,596 in restitution.
Vestavia Hills police said the Alabama license plate number for the silver Ford Edge is 2720AG7. York said if anyone sees the vehicle, they shouldn't approach them but should called Vestavia Hills police at 205-978-0140. They should be considered armed and dangerous.