SHAMOKIN - A man who allegedly threatened to stab a convenience store employee Wednesday night was quickly apprehended by city police.
Judge John Gembic III identified the suspect as Nicholas Birster, of Locust Gap.
Birster was expected to be arraigned by Gembic last Wednesday night.
A female employee of the Sunbury Street convenience store, which formerly was a Uni-Mart, said at the scene that the suspect threatened to stab her if she didn't open the cash register.
She complied, and the suspect made off with several hundred dollars in cash, she said.
A Shamokin man who had just pulled into the store's lot saw the suspect exit as the female employee followed him out the door.
"The girl pointed her finger and gave me a sign," said Ken Pilkus Jr. "I seen him put a wad of cash in his pocket and took off after him."
Pilkus said he had grabbed hold of the suspect as he attempted to hop a fence at a back yard around the corner on North Shamokin Street but the man got away.
The suspect reportedly alternated between Sunbury and Dewart streets, running up and down cross streets before officers apprehended him at Sunbury and Liberty streets - just three blocks from the scene.
The robbery was reported at 9:26 p.m. and Birster was in custody three minutes later.
He was being questioned at Sunbury and Liberty streets by Cpl. Darwin Tobias III and Cpl. John Brown of Shamokin police and Deputy Chief Chris Williams of Coal Township police before being taken into custody and transported to the city station.
Police were investigating the incident and unable to provide additional details, such as if a weapon had been recovered or what charges Birster faced.
Brittany Scarlett, 23, and Christina Simpson, 19, both of Shamokin, said Birster had been in the store and left before returning to allegedly rob the establishment.
The two women walked into the store as the suspect exited the first time and saw him walk north on Sunbury Street just minutes before the robbery occurred.
The employee, they said, told them he was talking to her just before he left.
When the two Shamokin women exited the store, the suspect was returning south on Sunbury Street and walked past them.
They watched as he pulled a bandana up to his face, but thinking he did so because it was cold outside, didn't think anything of it.
"He was waiting for us to leave," Scarlett said. "We walked past him. We didn't know anything."
