Robbery Leads Police to Bomb Hoax, HCPD Headquarters Evacuation

Two Laurel residents been charged in a plot to rob a Jessup drugstore of thousands of prescription painkillers using a gun, a getaway car and possibly a fake explosive device. The discovery of the device led to an evacuation of Howard County police headquarters in Ellicott City.

Police have charged Stoni B. Horton, 35, and Roy Lee Moore, 38, both of Laurel, with armed robbery and conspiracy to commit armed robbery. 

On Monday at approximately 12 p.m., police said, a man robbed the Family Care Pharmacy at 8610 Washington Blvd. in Jessup at gunpoint. He demanded Oxycodone, a narcotic pain medication, from an employee, then fled to a wooded area, said police. There were no customers in the store at the time, according to the report.

An officer noticed a suspicious vehicle parked near the woods, said Elizabeth Schroen, spokeswoman for the Howard County Police Department (HCPD), and a woman was found inside.

"Detectives believe she was acting as a getaway driver and was waiting for the robbery suspect to meet her," the department said in a written statement.

On Wednesday, during a traffic stop, police found the male suspect when they recovered thousands of stolen prescription painkillers matching the quantity stolen in the robbery, said Schroen.

But painkillers were not all they found.

After police towed Horton's vehicle to police headquarters at 3410 Court House Dr. in Ellicott City on Monday, the woman told police “that the vehicle contained a hoax explosive device that was planned to possibly be used during the robbery," said HCPD in a written statement on Sept. 21.

"As a precaution, police headquarters were evacuated, and the Office of the State Fire Marshal bomb squad inspected the device, confirming it was a hoax device," said police.

This is the second time the bomb squad has been called into the Howard County government's campus in the past month. On Aug. 29, a suspicious envelope caused evacuation of the George Howard Building.

Moore was being held in the Howard County Detention Center on a $250,000 bond. Horton was released on $50,000 bond, said police.