Suspect arraigned in store robberies

Details about an armed robbery at the North Springfield Irving gas station Dec. 14 came to light earlier this week during the suspect’s arraignment.

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Suspect arraigned in store robberies By ERIC FRANCIS CORRESPONDENT | January 09,2016 WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — Details about an armed robbery at the North Springfield Irving gas station Dec. 14 came to light earlier this week during the suspect’s arraignment. Joshua Corliss, 33, of North Springfield, was brought into court, where he pleaded innocent to a felony charge of assault and robbery in connection with the holdup. Corliss was a suspect in a separate armed robbery that took place earlier that same day at Cavendish General Store. Detectives said Corliss suffered a 2-inch cut on his forearm when the co-owner of the Cavendish store struck him with a machete. He continues to be held in pre-trial detention for lack of $50,000 bail. About 10 hours after the Cavendish robbery, police say Corliss once again borrowed his ex-girlfriend’s car and drove to a side street near the Irving station in North Springfield. It was the fourth time during 2015 that police from across the region had responded to that same gas station for a holdup and officers began a familiar sweep of surrounding streets looking for footprints and other evidence. Because the two women working in the Irving station had been alerted to the robbery earlier that day, they removed most of the cash within the store’s cash register. As a result, the robber made off with only $270. Within minutes, police found the weapon, which turned out to be a “very realistic” AirSoft pellet gun, about 12 feet off the roadway in some leaves near a small foot trail. Fingerprints that were lifted from the gun were sent to the Vermont State Crime Lab for analysis. Within hours, investigators from several police agencies began zeroing in on Corliss as their suspect for both robberies. Using images captured by video surveillance cameras at both holdup scenes and a hotel room key card that the robber dropped, along with a large knife, onto the floor during the struggle with the machete-wielding owner in Cavendish, police began comparing the robber’s clothing with video camera footage taken earlier the same day at Chester-Andover Elementary School after police learned that Corliss had dropped off his ex-girlfriend’s child that morning in exchange for borrowing her car. Vermont State Police Detective Sgt. Brian Berry wrote in his report that Corliss’ ex-girlfriend described him as “white in the face” when he returned her car midafternoon that Monday, and she said he had an arm injury that he refused to explain, saying she “didn’t need to know.” She reported to police that later in the evening Corliss borrowed her car again, and Berry said that time frame overlapped the robbery of the North Springfield Irving gas station. Berry said the video-recording made at the gas station shows the robber wearing the same blue-and-white jacket that Corliss was seen wearing that morning outside Chester-Andover Elementary School. Corliss’ criminal history includes five convictions for drunken driving and several car chases with police, including a 2010 pursuit through Reading during which a Windsor County deputy sheriff was nearly run down on foot. http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20160109/NEWS01/160109569 http://www.vermonttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/RH/20160109/NEWS01/160109569/