The Great Smoky Mountain Journal
Source:
Tuesday, January 01, 2019 02:39 PM
Woman Now In Custody, One Man Dead In Blount County Bank Robbery Monday Solved By Blount County Sheriff's Office
On Wednesday, Alcoa police identified the two people they said were responsible for the bank robbery Monday. APD said Eric David Iler, 33, of Wellington, Florida, and Laura Ann Spencer, 39, Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, were the people involved.
According to BCSO, shortly after 2 p.m. on Monday, APD officers were dispatched to the BB&T Bank on Associates Boulevard in response to a robbery call. Bank employees were unable to provide a description of the man, who they said was a white male wearing a dark jacket and a medical mask, to police. The employees said the man left in a dark blue Volkswagen sedan.
According to Alcoa police, Iler met Spencer on the sidewalk after receiving the money and fled.
Blount County dispatch issued a "Be On the Look Out" alert for the vehicle, and shortly thereafter, a narcotics deputy spotted a vehicle that matched the description on the US Highway 129 bypass. The officer stayed behind the vehicle and followed it to Peterson Lane and Regent Court.
BCSO said the deputy located the vehicle when it was parked in front of a residence on Regent Court. The deputy noticed the driver had swapped out the license plate from a Tennessee to a Florida registration.
Deputies, the sheriff's office SWAT team and agents with the Fifth Judicial Drug Task Force all arrived at the scene and set up a perimeter around the residence. They evacuated the other tenants of the multi-family, three-level dwelling.
Deputies made contact with a female in the residence, who eventually came out of the building and told deputies that the man inside said he was going to kill himself. SWAT team members entered the building and found a deceased male, later identified as Iler, with a gunshot wound. Alcoa police said Wednesday Iler's autopsy revealed the wound was consistent with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
