El Toro : Pair Arrested After Supermarket Holdup

Two suspects in a string of holdups were arrested following a freeway chase after a supermarket clerk was robbed of $1,500 Sunday afternoon, authorities said.

Sheriff’s Department Lt. Larry Richey said a man walked into a Vons Market on the corner of El Toro and Trabuco Roads at 5:10 p.m., pointed a handgun at a clerk and fled with the cash.

Witnesses told deputies that the suspect had left in a green Chevrolet with numerous rust spots, heading toward the San Diego Freeway, Richey said, and deputies were later advised that the description matched that of a vehicle seen in previous robberies.

A Fountain Valley patrolman traveling south on the freeway later saw a northbound vehicle answering the description, and a Westminster police officer entered the freeway but was unable to catch up with it.

But sheriff’s deputies in a patrol car overtook the vehicle just north of the 605 Freeway, and the two men were taken into custody.

Booked into the Orange County Jail on suspicion of robbery were Ronald Dade Dodd, 45, and Elias Papageorge, 38, whose addresses were unknown, Richey said.

Police in several cities where similar holdups have occurred will be contacted about the arrests because the two men “are definitely suspects in a series of robberies in the county,” he said.