EVERETT — An Everett man was so happy with his order at Taco Bell that he returned just two nights later demanding more.
Prosecutors say William J. Davis ran for the border, not for spicy nachos or cheap tacos, but to rob the fast food restaurant twice.
Davis, 32, was charged this week with second-degree robbery. He is accused of holding up the restaurant Aug. 13. Police say they caught up with him two days later when he tried to repeat the heist at the same restaurant on Broadway where he even bragged to an employee that he was responsible for the first hold up.
Witnesses told police that the first night a man walked up to the counter with one arm tucked under his sweatshirt. He pointed his covered arm at the clerk, as if he had a gun. He slid a paper bag across the counter and told the employee to “put all the money in the bag,” Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Craig Matheson wrote.
The employee asked the suspect, described as a skinny white man, if he was kidding.
She thought the guy might have a gun so she emptied the cash register and shoved about $100 into the bag. The robber grabbed the loot and ran off. Police were unable to find the suspect.
Two nights later Davis returned to the Taco Bell, Matheson wrote.
He walked up to the counter with an open McDonald’s bag and announced that he was the robber from the other day, court papers said.
The clerk looked down at the register and then told a customer, “Bob, this guy wants to rob me.”
Ruffled, the suspect abandoned heist number two and ran from the store, jumped on his waiting bicycle and pedaled off.
Employees and customers gave chase. One determined customer got in his car and drove after the would-be robber, catching up with the frantic bicyclist in an alley north of California Street. The customer told police he nudged the rear tire of the bike with his car.
The impact bent the rim of the rear tire on the suspect’s bicycle. The man gave up on the bike and ran off.
The customer grabbed the bike and went back to the Taco Bell with the evidence to wait for police.
Everett police officers swarmed the area. One officer stopped a man matching the robber’s description a short time later in an alley behind a Hewitt Avenue cafe.
The man gave the officer his name — William J. Davis.
Davis was acting nervous, but he was wearing a black shirt, not a white one, and said he’d been at a bar, not the Taco Bell, the cop reported. The officer let him go.
Police went to a nearby bar where a bartender told police about a man who had been there and had been acting suspiciously, Matheson wrote. The bartender told police the man threw something in the trash.
Police found a paper McDonald’s bag and, later, found a discarded white shirt in the area.
Police obtained a booking photograph of Davis. Officers showed the photograph to Taco Bell employees and the customer who seized the bike. They identified him as the would-be robber, Matheson wrote.
Officers arrested Davis a short time later. He denied robbing the Taco Bell or trying to rob the restaurant. He then asked for a lawyer.
As police were moving him to the jail he allegedly told them, “I’ll do it again.”
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463, hefley@heraldnet.com.
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