by Kevin Lilly
Investigators have charged a Wolcott man with robbing the State Bank of Burnettsville Monday afternoon.
As of Tuesday morning, 27-year-old Jeremy Nicholas Penn had been considered a person of interest, but after Indiana State Police detectives interviewed him at the Cass County Jail on Tuesday, they charged him with bank robbery, a class C felony.
Investigators believe that Penn took a car for a test drive from a Logansport dealership and then drove the car to Burnettsville, a White County town of fewer than 400 residents. They believe he robbed the bank there and then drove the car to Lake Cicott where he abandoned the car and then called someone to pick him up and drive him into Logansport, some 13 miles east of Burnettsville.
About 4:30 p.m. Monday, the Logansport Police Department received a call from the dealership advising that a car had been taken for a test drive and never returned. The dealership provided police with a copy of the driver’s license of the man who had taken the car.
Soon afterward, police began to focus on Penn as a person of interest in the robbery.
They arrested him without incident about 1:15 a.m. Tuesday as he left a tavern in Kokomo.
One investigator praised the way the various police agencies worked together.
“Without the help from Logansport Police Department, Cass County Sheriff’s Department, White County Sheriff’s Department, Indiana Department of Natural Resources Enforcement Division, Kokomo Police Department and Monticello Police Department, this arrest may not have been made,” ISP Detective Stephen Buckley said in a news release. “All departments working together on different leads and information from the public helped solve this case quickly.”
Investigators have declined to say whether they recovered any of the money taken in the bank robbery.
Penn remains in the Cass County Jail without bond on a charge of parole violation.
Kevin Lilly can be reached at (574) 732-5117, or via e-mail at kevin.lilly@pharostribune.com
