February 5, 2008
Gary Davidson
Public Information Officer

INVESTIGATORS ARREST TEENS IN CONVENIENCE STORE ROBBERY 

Volusia County Sheriff’s investigators have solved last month’s armed hold-up of a DeBary convenience store with the arrest of two teens, ages 15 and 18. Both suspects have confessed to their role in the Jan. 9 robbery of the Kangaroo Express Mart on South Charles R. Beall Boulevard. The youngest of the two defendants, Brandon Carner, also is facing charges of trafficking in cocaine after investigators searching his house turned up 48 grams of cocaine packaged for distribution. The older teen, Samuel Rivera, is currently on probation. 

Sheriff’s investigators immediately began tracking clues after two men, one armed with a shotgun, robbed the Kangaroo store. Neither clerk was injured in the robbery, which netted the crooks $35 and a carton of cigarettes. Minutes after the robbery, the suspects’ getaway vehicle, a stolen pickup truck, was found abandoned in Deltona with cigarettes and a bandana inside. After a tipster reported overhearing someone brag about robbing a convenience store, it didn’t take the case agent, Sheriff’s investigator Charles Lee, very long to put the pieces together. Lee quickly zeroed in on Samuel Rivera, who is known to hang out with the person who supposedly was told about the convenience store robbery. Lee and Sergeant Virgil Ford captured Rivera at a residence in Deltona on Thursday on an open warrant for a probation violation. During the capture, Sergeant Ford was bit by a pit bull and a 16-year-old boy was arrested for lying about Rivera being in the home. Investigators added charges against Rivera on Friday for armed robbery and grand theft auto after he confessed to the robbery. Rivera, of 261 Sunrise Blvd. in DeBary, is being held without bond at the Volusia County Branch Jail in Daytona Beach. 

Carner, of 1223 Whitewood Drive in Deltona, is facing charges of armed robbery, grand theft auto and trafficking in cocaine. He turned himself in to investigators in DeBary Tuesday morning and was transported to the Volusia Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Daytona Beach.