Detectives Bust Houston Man Accused In String Of Violent Convenience Store Robberies

A Houston man is being held under $100,000 bond after police detectives arrested him a charge related to a string of recent and violent armed robberies.

David Anthony Hutchinson, 36, was arrested Wednesday in Alvin by detectives for the Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office and the Missouri City Police Department. Police made the arrest thanks to a tip provided to Fort Bend County Crime Stoppers.

Hutchinson was jailed on a single charge of aggravated robbery, but a sheriff’s office spokeswoman said additional charges are expected.

Detectives believe Hutchinson went on a one-man crime spree beginning early Saturday and ending early Tuesday.

In between, according to reports from the sheriff’s office and the City of Manvel Police Department, a suspect police believe is Hutchinson robbed two convenience stores in Missouri City, two neighborhood groceries in Fresno and a convenience store in Manvel.

The suspect in the robberies brandished a large knife during all five incidents and injured two clerks, one seriously enough to require hospitalization. He held a knife to the throat of at least two others while forcing them to open cash registers.

According to police reports, the first in the string of robberies occurred Saturday at 4:40 a.m., when Hutchinson is alleged to have robbed a Valero gas station store at 2975 Texas Parkway in Missouri City.

At 8:11 a.m. Saturday, sheriff’s detectives think the same suspect robbed Fresno Grocery, at 3503 F.M. 521 in Fresno.

Then at 5:35 p.m. Saturday, the robber struck again, holding up the Fresno Food Mart at 4327 F.M. 521.

In both Fresno robberies, sheriff’s detectives believe and security camera video shows, a man identified as Hutchinson put store clerks in a headlock while holding a knife to their throats. In one robbery, security video shows him throwing a female clerk to the ground and running out the front door with two hands full of cash.

At about 9 p.m., detectives believe, the same man struck again, robbing a Shell gas station store at 7118 State Highway 6 in Missouri City. In that robbery, the clerk was stabbed by the robber. The victim was transported to Ben Taub Hospital, where he was listed in stable condition, a sheriff’s spokeswoman said.

Meanwhile, Manvel police say a man sheriff’s detectives think was Hutchinson entered a Valero convenience store at 17514 Morris Ave. in that Brazoria County city, at about 12:30 a.m. Tuesday.

The suspect “went behind the counter, grabbed the clerk from behind, held a knife to his neck and demanded the money from the cash drawer,” a police report says. “The clerk complied with the suspect; however the clerk sustained a laceration to his hand after a brief struggle. The suspect fled in a vehicle that was being followed by an off duty Iowa Colony Volunteer Firefighter.”

The suspect in that robbery drove his vehicle into a full canal, police said, and ran off. An “extensive search by Alvin police and Brazoria County Sheriff’s K-9 dogs and handlers, aided by a Houston Police Department helicopter, came up empty.

When Manvel police pulled the vehicle from the canal, they found it had been stolen on Friday from the same Valero store detectives think Hutchinson robbed on Tuesday.

A sheriff’s spokeswoman said Hutchinson’s booking photo won’t immediately be released because detectives are using it as part of a photo lineup being presented to victims in the string of store robberies.