GA Jury Finds Hold-Up Note, Convicts

Evidence

Posted Oct 15, 2007, 01:19 pm CST
By Martha Neil

A Georgia jury convicted an attempted bank robbery suspect, after discovering in evidence the impression of a hold-up note that the prosecution missed.

Both a blank notebook, which contained the impression, and two incomplete handwritten notes that police found in a car with two men who allegedly attempted to rob a Hogansville, Ga., bank were admitted in evidence, reports the LaGrange Daily News. But it wasn't until the jury was deliberating the case of Darius Heard that the impression was discovered.

It read: "This is a stickup. Don't panic or you could put the life of your teller in danger. I won't hesitate to kill. 20's, 50's, 100's. Please! Thank you."

Prosecutor Lynda Caldwell was stunned by the jurors' work in the Troup County Superior Court trial. "They took it upon themselves to look at the notebook and decipher the indentations, and it was a completed note," she says.

Heard, 29, of Fayetteville, was sentenced last week to 16 years in prison for the April 11 robbery. He was convicted of attempted robbery, fleeing officers and reckless driving. Co-defendant Reamon Mapp, 25, of Austell, received a 10-year prison term. He pleaded guilty to attempted robbery, fleeing officers and possession of cocaine.

The newspaper says the apparent robbery attempt was interrupted when a sheriff's deputy saw the two men, on foot, acting suspiciously near the RBC Centura bank on High Street. They fled by car, but he pursued and arrested them after a high-speed chase.

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