Wife’s Missing Person’s Report Leads to Robbery Suspect

Sheriff’s investigators got some unexpected help in identifying a man believed to have committed four armed robberies in the Santa Clarita Valley over the weekend--from a missing person’s report filed by the man’s wife.

The man, Kevin Crotty, 28, of Castaic, was arrested Sunday after he was shot in the shoulder by a clerk as he attempted to rob a liquor store in San Fernando, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said Wednesday.

Sheriff’s deputies identified Crotty as the same man who had been reported missing by his wife Sunday morning and the suspect they were seeking in connection with a string of robberies that began Friday, said Lt. Harvey Cantor.

Los Angeles police had been looking for a man fitting the same description in connection with two other robberies in the San Fernando Valley.

The Santa Clarita Valley robberies included two Shell service stations in Santa Clarita and Saugus and two 7-Eleven stores in Castaic and Santa Clarita, Cantor said.

Crotty was connected to the robberies after a sheriff’s detective, Jerry Johnson, noticed that the suspected robber matched Crotty’s description as reported by his wife. Johnson also found a similarity between the license plate numbers of Crotty’s car and the getaway car in one of the robberies, Cantor added.

In addition, the detective had read a Teletype describing a man wanted by the Los Angeles Police Department for committing two robberies.

Crotty confessed to committing the robberies, Cantor said.