Gas Station Robbery Suspects Run Out of Gas

Aug. 17, 2000 -- If you’re going to rob a gas station, you might as well fill up the tank.

Police say Ricky Boice, 24, and Steven Gosnell, 42, robbed the Site station in downtown East Peoria, Ill., around 6:00 a.m. Wednesday, but then ran out of gas only a few blocks away. They were arrested shortly afterward.

Instead of fleeing on foot, police say Boice and Gosnell walked a half mile to another gas station to buy two cans of gas with the money they had stolen from the first station.

Detective Pete Fisher was examining their abandoned Chrysler, which belonged to Gosnell, soon after the robbery when he got a radio call from another officer saying the suspects were apparently walking back to the car with gas canisters.

“My first thought is, ‘no, this can’t be true,’” he said with a chuckle.

The officer stopped one of the suspects, but let him continue walking back to the vehicle, which was surrounded by police. They arrested him as he tried to get in the car, Fisher said. “That’s one of the dumbest mistakes I’ve ever seen.” The suspect’s partner was following right behind him, Fisher said, but it was unclear whether it was Boice or Gosnell who approached the car first.

They had apparently been driving back toward the gas station they had robbed when their engine died, Fisher added.

A Crime Spree Gone Wrong?

Fisher says the suspects had already tried unsuccessfully to rob a pharmacy earlier that morning, with their faces hidden by pillow cases with eye-holes cut in them.

When one of the suspects demanded money from the woman behind the counter, she refused, saying she didn’t have access to the store safe. The suspect ran out with a bottle of liquor, Fisher said, and the woman was able to read part of the vehicle’s Wisconsin license plate.

Less that 20 minutes later, the robbers pulled up at the Site gas station, where manager Trina Coulter was working the early shift.

“He told me to give him all my money,” she recounted today. “And I said no.”

“He didn’t look like a serious criminal,” she explained.

When the suspect, again wearing a pillow case mask, got agitated and swore at her, she handed over approximately $100 dollars, she said.

No weapons were found on Boice and Gosnell, or in their car, said Fisher.

“When they left I was pretty freaked out,” Coulter said.

“But I was laughing about it by the afternoon.”

As of today, neither Boice nor Gosnell has requested an attorney, and the court has yet to appoint a public defender for them. The city attorney declined to comment on the case, and referred calls to the police department.

The two were charged with robbery and aggravated robbery and could face up to 15 years in prison.