A 23-year-old Little Rock man who robbed two Dollar General stores -- twice -- and a restaurant over the span of three weeks, barely speaking during all, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Sentencing papers filed Wednesday show Canaan Trever Aldridge, who is deaf, pleaded guilty to five counts of aggravated robbery and five counts of theft in exchange for the 10-year term imposed by Pulaski County Circuit Judge Cathi Compton.
One of those theft counts stems from Aldridge's Nov. 30, 2017, arrest for stealing a pistol from Boll Weevil Pawn at 3700 S. University Ave. three days earlier.
Court filings show Aldridge approached store clerk Jazzmyne Simmons to look at a 9mm semi-automatic pistol, giving her his identification while he held the pistol to look it over.
Simmons said Aldridge never spoke during the encounter but communicated with hand gestures. He ran from the store with the gun, leaving his ID behind. The incident also was recorded on store security video.
Court filings show that the robberies occurred between Jan. 20, 2018, and Feb. 10, 2018, beginning with Aldridge's attempt to hold up Great American Wings at 6323 Colonel Glenn Road at gunpoint.
The effort was rebuffed by the only employee at the store, David Daniels. Daniels said he was in the kitchen when he heard a man demanding money, looked out and saw a hoodie-wearing man with a bandanna over his mouth waving a gun. Daniels told police that he told the robber there was no money in the restaurant and that Daniels stayed in the kitchen until the man left empty-handed.
Detectives collected surveillance video from the store and saw two men together outside the restaurant, one of them wearing the same clothes attributed to the robber. Aldridge was eventually identified as the suspect in part because police recognized the second man as Octavious Wesson, 23, of Little Rock who said he and Aldridge had been at the store.
Five days after the chicken-wing robbery attempt, Aldridge struck at the Dollar General at 3500 John Barrow Road on Jan 25, 2018, where he threatened clerk Terri Hubbard with a knife and took cash. Store workers said the robber covered his face and never spoke, but gestured with the knife for the money, then ran off with it.
After another five days passed, Aldridge held up Dollar General clerk Corey Willis at the store at 7710 Colonel Glenn Road on Jan. 30, 2018. He returned to the John Barrow Dollar General with a knife Feb. 3, 2018, again threatening Hubbard to get cash from the register before fleeing.
Shortly after that holdup, Little Rock police identified Aldridge as a potential suspect and were on the lookout for him, court filings show.
He was arrested a week later after holding up the clerk Stanley White at the Dollar General at 7710 Colonel Glenn Road on Feb. 10, 2018.