Norcross police are tracking a man they say DNA recently linked to the armed robbery of a motel guest in June.
The robbery - netted all of $20 and a Samsung Galaxy phone — left the victim “very nervous and shaken” because two robbers had tied her up with duct tape, according to the police report.
But the duct tape proved to be detective’s best evidence when the Georgia Bureau of Investigation lab managed to match DNA found on the tape to a man with a felony record, Capt. Bill Grogan said.
Police have taken out arrest warrants charging 34-year-old Jay Bernard Pope with home invasion and armed robbery.
“We’re working with multiple agencies attempting to locate him but as of now we have not located him,” Grogan told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Pope served a four-month sentence out of Cobb County in 2010 for impersonating an officer and false imprisonment, according to state records.
In the Norcross case, the victim, Waneaka Walker, said two men forced their way into her room at the Days Inn on Western Hills Drive. One of the men, armed with a gun “told her to get on the ground before he shoots her,” while the other man rifled her belongings,the report said.
The men bound her arms, legs, ankles and mouth with duct tape, the report said.
On Jan. 29, the GBI lab returned a DNA match from the tape to Pope, the report said.
Please return to AJC.com for updates.
About the Author
