Robber demanded drugs, cash, trial told
Man charged with robbing Penticton pharmacy in 2014
A man currently facing seconddegree murder charges in the Lower Mainland started a trial for the robbery of a Penticton pharmacy on Monday.
Shayne Daniel Duncan McGenn, 34, is charged with robbery, disguising his face with intent to commit an offence and using an imitation firearm while committing an offence in connection with the robbery of The Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy on May 22, 2014.
Two employees from the pharmacy, located near Real Canadian Superstore, testified Monday that sometime after 9 a.m. on the day in question, a man disguised in a black baseball cap and white bandana, approximately five feet eight inches tall, entered the store with a gun and demanded drugs as well as cash from the register.
Employee Arwen Cassidy said the robber was of an average build and carried a revolver-style gun.
“Basically all he said at that time, using the gun to point, was, ‘You over here, stay still, let me see your hands, don’t move, don’t do anything stupid,’ comments to that effect,” Cassidy said.
The robber then asked her co-worker Amanda Wright to open the narcotics cupboard.
“He was very specific at that point in his demands about what sort of drugs he wanted dropped in his backpack,” Cassidy said.
The robber then asked Cassidy to open the till, grabbed roughly $100 in cash and left out the back door, she said. She could only speculate about the man’s age and skin tone.
“This person came across as being a little bit nervous and a little bit unsure,” she said, putting his age somewhere under 40.
RCMP Cpl. Frank Roberts, with Kelowna Police Dog Services, also took the stand to describe the search he and his partner, Dex, conducted after the robbery.
Tracking southeast across Dawson Avenue, Dex was able to locate a black baseball cap around 100 metres away, as well as a grey sweatshirt found in an alleyway.
A white bandana was found in the area by Cpl. Chad Parsons afterwards.
A DNA recording officer is expected to testify later in the trial, which is scheduled to conclude Wednesday, though defence counsel Don Skogstad told The Herald it may wrap up today.
Skogstad said previously the Crown’s case hinges on DNA acquired from the clothing.
Once done in Penticton, McGenn is heading to a 13-week trial beginning April 30 for the second-degree murder of 63-year-old David Delaney in Abbotsford in February 2016.