Man convicted of Whitpain carjackings

A Norristown man went on a 20-minute crime spree and carjacked or tried to carjack numerous terrified drivers.

“They don’t feel safe anymore when they’re getting in and out of their cars and when they’re on the road.” _ Montgomery County Prosecutor Tanner Beck

NORRISTOWN >> A Norristown man who during a 20-minute crime spree carjacked or tried to carjack numerous terrified drivers in Whitpain was convicted of numerous charges and now awaits his fate from a judge.

George Ronald Mackrides III, 33, of the 200 block of East Marshall Street, was convicted in Montgomery County Court of charges of robbery of a motor vehicle, robbery, attempted theft of a motor vehicle, simple assault and recklessly endangering other persons in connection with multiple incidents that occurred in Whitpain on March 17, 2019.

Judge William R. Carpenter, who rendered the verdict after hearing testimony during a one-day nonjury trial, deferred sentencing until March so that court officials can complete a background investigation report about Mackrides, who potentially faces decades in prison.

Mackrides remains in the county jail without bail pending his sentencing hearing.

With the verdict, the judge determined Mackrides completed one carjacking and attempted to carjack four other drivers all the while endangering the lives of the occupants of the vehicles.

“These are truly violent offenses. He ran car to car. It affected each one of these victims severely. They don’t feel safe anymore when they’re getting in and out of their cars and when they’re on the road,” said Assistant District Attorney Tanner Beck, who vowed to seek a lengthy prison term against Mackrides. “The fear is living with them.”

Mackrides did not testify during the trial. But defense lawyer Denise Marone suggested the events unfolded so quickly during chaotic situations to the point the victims could not have definitively identified Mackrides as the attacker.

However, the victims who testified during the trial did identify Mackrides, who had numerous tattoos on his face and neck, as the man who accosted them in their vehicles.

The crime spree unfolded about 7:30 p.m. when Mackrides approached a woman standing outside a residence along Blue Bell Springs Drive and as he asked her for the time grabbed her keys and entered her vehicle, according to the criminal complaint filed by Whitpain Township police officers Jonathan Gallagher and Bradly Potter.

The victim and her boyfriend attempted to stop Mackrides as he drove away, chasing the vehicle and at times hanging on, but were thwarted as Mackrides continued on with “erratic swerving,” police alleged.

“Eventually I just fell out. I couldn’t think about what else to do at the time. I still tried to chase the car,” the woman’s boyfriend testified, describing the situation as an “adrenaline rush.”

During his getaway, Mackrides struck a curb and the Ford Focus eventually became disabled at Skippack Pike and DeKalb Pike and Mackrides abandoned the vehicle, according to the criminal complaint.

Police said Mackrides then approached a Mitsubishi Outlander vehicle, occupied by a woman and her teenage son, which was stopped at a red traffic signal at the intersection.

“The defendant opened the driver’s side door and told (the woman), ‘I need this car, get out!’” Gallagher and Potter alleged, adding Mackrides forcibly tried to remove the woman from the vehicle but she drove off, dragging Mackrides a short distance before he broke free.

Mackrides then ran toward a parking lot shared by a CVS and a Wawa and attempted to carjack a man and a woman who were in a Subaru Forester vehicle. Mackrides opened the driver’s side door and grabbed the man around his neck and attempted to “rip” him from the vehicle, police said.

“He pulled the door open and reached in. He grabbed me around the neck. He’s pulling. I went into defensive mode. I was trying to protect my wife,” the man said during dramatic trial testimony. “He began to struggle more. My wife was screaming.”

“There was a moment of shock where you don’t understand what’s going on. I was terrified,” the man’s wife testified.

The man told his wife to run into the CVS to call for help and then he began to drive the vehicle in an attempt to break free from Mackrides’ grip, who was still hanging onto his neck, according to testimony.

“I pulled it into gear and into drive and hit the gas,” the man testified.

Mackrides eventually fell out of the Subaru Forester and then ran toward a man who was entering a Mazda vehicle parked outside the Wawa and violently shoved the man out of the way and got into the driver’s seat.

“I asked him to remove himself from the automobile. He was attempting to start the car,” the victim testified, describing a tugof-war scenario with the driver’s side door.

At that time, Whitpain police arrived on the scene and Mackrides exited the Forester and fled on foot with police in pursuit. Mackrides ran to the nearby parking lot of Palermo’s Pizza on DeKalb Pike where he attempted to steal the car of a man and his wife, according to testimony and court papers. As Mackrides forced his way into the driver’s seat police arrived and closed in and removed him from the vehicle at gunpoint.

“(Mackrides) surrendered and put his hands in the air,” police wrote in the arrest affidavit.

None of the victims reported seeing Mackrides with a weapon during the incidents.