According to a public information release from Officer Sydney Melton of the Cobb County Police Department, Cobb police and the Smyrna Police Department have been jointly investigating a series of drug store armed robberies in the Smyrna area, and an arrest was made yesterday.

The public information release describes two of the robberies as follows:

On November 12, 2019, at 9:13 p.m., Cobb County Police Precinct Three officers responded to the Walgreens Pharmacy located at 4371 South Cobb Drive, in reference to an armed robbery. During the investigation, it was learned that the suspects were described as an older white male with a beard and an older black male with a beard. The two male suspects approached the front counter. The white male suspect displayed a machete style knife and then went behind the counter, demanding cash from the drawer. The black male then took the cash drawer and the two suspects fled the store. No one was injured during the incident.

On November 13, 2019, at 2:11 p.m., Cobb County Police Precinct Three officers responded to the Walgreens Pharmacy located at 5000 Floyd Road, in reference to an armed robbery. The robbery occurred in a similar manner as the above armed robbery and the suspect descriptions matched the previous incident. No items or money were taken during this incident and no injuries occurred.

(Editor’s note: A sharp-eyed reader, Patricia Auch, pointed out that the Floyd Road robbery was at a Walgreens, whereas an earlier version of the Cobb police statement stated it was a CVS. I contacted the Public Information Officer with Cobb Police who acknowledge the error and is issuing a corrected press release).

Smyrna Police Department were investigating a similar armed robbery at a drug store within the city limits. The description of the suspects and the “machete style knife” matched the description that the Cobb Crimes Against Persons Unit had of the Cobb robberies.

Arrest warrants were obtained by the Crimes Against Person Unit and Smyrna Police Department for Timothy Soulsby, 62, of Mableton, and Vincent McClure, 63 of Atlanta.

According to the public information release, “On November 14, 2019, the two suspects were located by the Atlanta Police Department and a traffic stop was conducted just inside Cobb County, along with CCPD officers. Both suspects were taken into custody, without incident, and are currently at the Cobb County Adult Detention Center without bond.”

Crimes Against Persons Unit

The Crimes Against Persons Division of the Cobb County Police Department is broken down into several specialized units, to investigate homicides, robberies, technology-based crime, domestic violence and stalking, and crimes against children. It has a unit that does crime analysis to identify evidence to help link cases and identify suspects.

The division also houses the Crime Scene Unit that according to the division’s website “is responsible for documenting and processing crime scenes to locate evidence, identify suspects, and to present evidence in criminal proceedings. Crime scene technicians are responsible for processing evidence utilizing a variety of procedures for fingerprint, DNA, and trace evidence.”