Florida

Stressed-out serial robber calls 911 while standing outside bank

 

Tampa Bay Times

Police said William Richard Kane III robbed a bank on Wednesday morning.

Then, they said, he did the same thing on Thursday morning.

On Friday morning, he was about to rob a third bank, they said, when something stopped him. Kane called 911.

The 51-year-old Oldsmar resident said he was stressed out and tired.

"He told dispatchers he wanted to go back to rehab," said St. Petersburg police spokesman Mike Puetz. "He'd fallen off the wagon."

He also told the officers who arrived at a Wells Fargo Bank in St. Petersburg about 10:15 a.m. Friday that he was depressed and suicidal. Kane is addicted to crack cocaine, Puetz said.

Officers said Kane admitted to robbing St. Petersburg's First Bank on Wednesday and then robbing the Chase Bank at in Pinellas Park on Thursday.

He was charged with two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon and was being held in the county jail in lieu of $100,000 bail.

Kane did two prison stints in the past two decades, according to records, mostly for Pinellas County charges of robbery. He was last released from prison in 2008.

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