FORT WAYNE – Fort Wayne police have made a second arrest in Wednesday’s robbery at a near-northeast side jewelry store that left the owner’s husband badly injured.
Police said Theron A. Smith, one of two armed men who entered the store, was apprehended Thursday. Smith, 19, of Fort Wayne faces a preliminary charge of robbery causing serious bodily injury.
The day of the holdup, officers arrested the alleged getaway driver, Stafford A. Staples Jr., 18, of the 2400 block of Marcy Lane. He was preliminarily charged with robbery.
Smith was being held without bail. Staples’ bail was set at $10,000.
A third arrest is expected soon, police said.
According to court papers, Aithuan Nguyen-Do, the owner of Do’s Jewelers at 2809 E. State Blvd., stepped outside Wednesday morning to give mail to the mail carrier, and as she came back inside, two men followed her, shoving a gun against her head.
“Where’s the money? Where are the safe keys?” they yelled, according to court papers.
The owner told police she gave the men the key to the safe, but they opened it and found it was empty. The men also tried unsuccessfully to break the glass jewelry case, court papers stated.
The men fought with the owner’s 54-year-old husband, Rang Q. Do, striking him in the head and face with a handgun. During the struggle, a shot was fired, but no one was hit, police said.
The men ran from the store with no loot, and a surveillance camera at a doctor’s office next door captured footage of them, court papers stated.
Police were called to the store about 10:40 a.m., and they found Rang Do lying in the back, with cuts, scrapes, bruises and a concussion. Medics took him to Parkview Regional Medical Center, court papers said.
He was initially listed in serious condition, but police said Thursday that he had been upgraded to fair condition.
With descriptions of the getaway vehicle and the direction it was headed, officers stopped two vehicles Wednesday. The second one, a red-and-gray Chevrolet Blazer, had evidence of the robbery inside, police said.
The driver, Staples, was the only person in the Blazer, police said. He told investigators that the two men who held up the jewelry store had offered him $100 to be their getaway driver. He also said the girlfriend of one of the men served as a lookout, according to court papers.
