November 25, 2009
Gary Davidson
Public Information Officer

ROBBER NABBED AFTER HOTEL CLERK SMASHED WITH FIRE EXTINGUISHER

A robber made off with cash early Wednesday morning after smashing a hotel clerk on the side of the head with a fire extinguisher. However, the suspect left behind plenty of evidence to help Volusia County Sheriff’s deputies quickly link the culprit to the crime. Responding deputies scouring the Destination Daytona Hotel & Suites on U.S. 1 near Ormond Beach for clues found a folder with personal information, including the suspect’s high school diploma, Social Security card and the title to his vehicle. Three hours after the robbery, 32-year-old Jacob Swanson was in custody facing charges of robbery with a deadly weapon, aggravated battery, burglary of an unoccupied structure and preventing or obstructing extinguishment of fire.

Swanson is accused of barging into the hotel and accosting a 46-year-old female clerk. When the suspect demanded money, the clerk pulled out her cell phone to call for help. The suspect, however, grabbed the clerk’s phone and then smashed the side of her head with a fire extinguisher. The impact opened up a gash that required six staples to close. After striking the clerk, the suspect forced the victim into the front office and then stole her purse, a money drawer and a money bag from the hotel’s on-site pub. The suspect then fled the scene. Deputies later discovered that he had also broken into a vacant room at the hotel.

Deputies began converging on the scene after the clerk called 911 at 5:05 a.m. to report the robbery. She was later taken to an area hospital for treatment of her injury. Once deputies located the suspect’s personal information at the hotel, they pulled up his driver’s license photo on-line and compared it to the images on the hotel’s surveillance video, and that’s how they were able to confirm that Swanson was the robber. Deputies quickly zeroed in on Swanson and then got another break in the case in the form of a tip that the suspect was staying at a Sleep Inn in Palm Coast, approximately 17 miles north of where the robbery took place.

Investigators passed the information on to Flagler County deputies, who rounded up Swanson at the hotel and took him into custody at about 8 a.m. Swanson was booked into the Flagler County Inmate Facility while Sheriff’s investigators in Volusia County obtained arrest warrants. Swanson subsequently confessed to Volusia investigators and is being held in Flagler County on $135,000 bond.