Protecting Yourself and Your Investment

By Bill Gilbert | Jun 11, 2009

The orange glow of two cigarettes was all that could be seen behind the windshield of the pale yellow “deuce and a quarter” parked across the street from the South Kilbourne Coin Laundry. The oversized auto – referred to on the streets simply as a “deuce and a quarter” – was a Buick Electra 225. The factory gave its nod for the name due to the car’s mammoth 225-inch body length.

Behind the wheel of the auto were two desperate men who needed money to pay for the five pounds of marijuana they had “ordered” and was due to arrive in the city within a couple of days. The neighborhood 7-Eleven and Rosewood Dairy Bar, which they had robbed earlier in the week, left them far short of their financial goal. So now the coin laundry was going to be the next target, and they were coming up with a plan.

It was about 10:30 at night, the streets were dark and the coin laundry and a convenience store were the only businesses open. The laundry was in the process of closing, and the bright interior lights made viewing all of the activities going on inside plainly visible to anyone standing (or sitting in a car) on the outside.

This was not the first time the big Buick had parked close by to watch the comings and goings at this laundry. In fact, several times during the past month these two “bad guys” brought small articles of clothing into the store and used the machines, sitting in different sections of the laundry and watching the owner pull large bundles of bills out of the changer, filling an empty tin two-gallon pail to the rim with quarters. The bad guys also made a mental note that the owner carried a .38 caliber pistol tucked into his belt – with the handle purposely exposed whenever customers were in the laundry.

The owner had problems in the past with someone breaking into the building and prying open the coin boxes. So every night he’d collect his daily till and leave the empty coin boxes exposed and on top of the washers. The quarter hoppers in bill changer were removed and emptied, leaving the changer door open so that, theoretically, anyone looking into the window could see that there was no money left in any of the machines at night, thus preventing someone from breaking into the laundry… and stealing his money.

Little did the owner and his wife know that their habitual routine every night would eventually lead to a more serious crime – an act that almost cost them their lives.

The bad guys’ stakeout also taught them that, after the money was collected, the owner and his wife would go into the back room to count the daily collection, bag it in a canvas bank bag, come out of the office, turn off some of the interior lights, and exit through the front door. Same thing, same time, every day… not a good idea!

Knowing that this laundry did the most business on a Saturday and collections would be larger, the robbery was set for the next weekend, and each of them knew what they had to do…

I was an investigative sergeant with the Richland County Sheriff’s Department in Columbia, S.C., during this time, and I was assigned to a Major Crimes Unit that specialized in the investigations of homicides, armed robberies and burglary.

Saturday, 11:04 p.m.… Radio emergency dispatched three uniformed officers, a uniformed supervisor and an investigator from the MCU…me, to the South Kilbourne Coin Laundry.

“Signal 4, with serious injuries… 10-39,” the dispatcher relayed.

“Signal 4” indicated an armed robbery, and “10-39” meant to get there as soon as possible. Blue lights and sirens all the way.

We arrived and found that the owner and his wife had both been stabbed repeatedly. The wife also has been sexually assaulted. Both were transported to the hospital. All of the money, the bad guys and the owner’s .38 caliber were all missing from the scene.

Witnesses placed a large yellow car leaving the scene at a high rate of speed, with two male occupants – and one witness thought he recognized the driver.

Two nights later, a female manager working the night shift at a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant was accosted outside while she was throwing trash bags into the dumpster behind the store. A .38 caliber pistol was pointed at her head, and she was ordered back inside. The two bad guys followed her back into the closed store and demanded the safe be opened. She refused and was immediately shot and killed.

An employee of the KFC recognized one of the men as being the manager’s cousin. Also, a customer in the store ran outside and saw the men get into a pale yellow “deuce and a quarter.” And this time, someone got the license plate number.

The number and the model of the car did not match, but riding past the address given by the Department of Transportation’s information proved that it didn’t matter. There it was! The “deuce” was parked in the front yard. Backup was called in.

The bad guys were hiding in an attic. Tear gas was tossed inside when they refused to come out, and after a little commotion from their hiding place, both of them fell through the sheet rock ceiling at our feet – a .38 caliber pistol falling with them… the very same firearm that belonged to the owner of the coin laundry and was used to murder the KFC manager.

We laundry owners operate businesses that contain a lot of cash most of the time. On this Web site, I’ll be writing articles to help you keep the money you earn and protect your investment. I’ll be offering up some recommended security suggestions for you to consider and hopefully adopt:

• We’ll discuss different ways and schedules to collect your stores and make your bank deposits safer.

• What to do and how to train your attendants when reacting to or facing an emergency.

• Suggestions for when designing a new or existing laundry in a way that is both secure for you and your customers.

• What to look for when purchasing security cameras and alarm systems. And, after your purchase, where to put the cameras and what type of alarm system you really need.

• Employee theft. We never want to believe that it could happen to good ol’ trusty you – but it happens more than we want to admit.

• Keys and locks. Do you know where all of your keys are? And did you know that lock-picking still exists?

• Bill changer placement – and the latest trends on how the bad guys try to cheat the machines or even break into them.

• The benefits of a card system or tokens, versus coin machines, when addressing security.

The list goes on. Of course, we also want to hear from you about your security issues and the latest scams in your part of the world.

And, by the way… today, those two bad guys in the story are both serving a lifetime of sentences at a maximum-security institution for the murder of the KFC manager, the assault and armed robbery of the coin laundry owners, and an additional seven charges for armed robberies in the area.

The “deuce and a quarter?” Yep, you guessed it… they had stolen that as well.