Two men nabbed after attempting to rob M’ville store

MARYSVILLE — Two men have been jailed after an attempted armed robbery went awry and one would-be robber fired shots at a convenience store clerk.

The clerk was uninjured.

The shooter fled in a getaway vehicle driven by an accomplice, Marysville police Cmdr. Robb Lamoureux said Monday.

Snohomish County sheriff’s deputies spotted the vehicle about 20 minutes later in the Snohomish area and arrested two men, 18 and 19, without incident, he said.

The robbery attempt occurred about 10:30 p.m. Sunday in the 5300 block of 61st Street NE. The clerk, who was alone in the store, walked out of a back room and was confronted by a man displaying a handgun who announced he was robbing the store. The robber ordered the clerk to go to the register and get cash, but the clerk slipped out another door and ran for safety, Lamoureux said. The robber fired several shots at the clerk, then fled the store. The clerk saw him get into a vehicle.

Shortly before the robbery attempt, another store employee had stopped by the store and saw two men sitting in a vehicle down the street. Upon leaving the store, that employee made a note of the vehicle license plate, Lamoureux said.

The deputies who stopped the vehicle recovered two handguns.

Crash victim identified: The Snohomish County Medical Examiner identified a man killed in an all-terrain vehicle crash as John Dean Kelley, 27, of Auburn.

Kelley died at the scene Friday about 9:40 p.m. about milepost 15 on Forest Service Road 6550 off the Mountain Loop Highway in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, Snohomish County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Jan Jorgensen said. Kelley was driving a new 2001 ATV.

He was driving on a gravel road in the dark when the vehicle left the road and struck a tree, the medical examiner’s office said. He died of a head injury.

Alcohol was believed to be a factor in the crash, Jorgensen said.

From Herald staff reports