Shopping Spree Ends in Jail for Robbery Suspects
A couple who celebrated a bank robbery with an expensive dinner and a shopping spree were arrested after a limousine chauffeur drove them to Connecticut on their “honeymoon,” authorities said today.
Marvin Birdsong, 41, and Lilian Mae Cline, 26, were arrested in the lobby of the Sheraton Hotel in Windsor Locks early Wednesday by FBI officials and state police.
They were charged with robbing $25,000 from the Shawmut Bank of Rhode Island at the Warwick Mall on Tuesday.
About an hour and a half after the bank robbery, the couple called for a limousine.
“They told me they had gotten married just two weeks before,” said Paul Gay, manager of Dayton Classic Limousines, who picked them up at a hotel. “They were on their honeymoon.”
Their first stop was affluent Newport, R.I., where they stopped and bought luggage before going to a restaurant for lobster and a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne.
Finally, the couple decided to go to Hartford because the man “said he’d been there before, and he might do a little shopping there,” Gay said.
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