Three men from California are accused of robbing a Casper Walgreens of thousands of opioid pills, after watching a how-to-rob-a-Walgreens video on Instagram.
One of the men said he’d never heard of Wyoming before they arrived, and another said they chose Wyoming because he had always wanted to visit the state, according to an evidentiary affidavit filed in Casper Circuit Court on Tuesday.
Charles Jemison, who is about 21, and Curtis Green and Joshua Slaughter, both 23, all face various felony charges on suspicion of robbery, drug possession, and conspiracy to deliver drugs, as well as a misdemeanor charge each for allegedly having marijuana in their getaway car.
Green face a misdemeanor eluding charge on suspicion of being the getaway driver, and Jemison faces a kidnapping charge for allegedly confining pharmacy workers during the robbery.
Clearing The Counter, Loading The Drugs
An employee called 911 from Walgreens on 190 SE Wyoming Blvd. in Casper at about 7:45 p.m. the evening of May 26, the affidavit says.
The caller said a man who stood about 5-foot-8 and wore a dark hoodie leapt over the pharmacy counter and robbed the place, taking a whole bag of oxycodone and everything in the safe.
The robber held something in his pocket that seemed like a gun, a pharmacy worker later told a Casper Police Department investigator. The hooded figure shoved the pharmacy worker toward the back of the pharmacy and demanded all the oxycodone, the affidavit relates.
But this pharmacy worker did not have access to the opioid safe, so the robber approached a woman who also worked in the pharmacy.
The woman did have access to the opioid safe. But she warned the hooded man that there was a delay setting on it and it would take some time to get the drugs out.
She punched in the code.
The hooded figure waited, and ordered the male pharmacy worker and another, female employee, to face the counter and keep their hands planted on the counter, the affidavit says.
When the safe finally opened, the man loaded all the oxycodone, hydrocodone, hydromorphone, and methadone into a plastic bag and ran out, the affidavit says.
The Car Chase
Another man was trying to distract people during the robbery, and the pair left in a white passenger car later identified as a KIA Forte, with dark-colored windows, headed west on East 2nd St., the affidavit says. The KIA had wreckage on the front bumper.
As police rushed to the Walgreens, they met a Kia with front-end damage and blackout windows speeding west on East 2nd St.
Sgt. Peterson was near there, and he flipped on his lights, and got ready to deploy stop sticks, the affidavit says. But just then the KIA changed direction, veering onto I-25 headed south.
Wyoming Highway Patrol troopers chased the vehicle. Peterson went to the pharmacy to interview witnesses and inventory the lost loot.
What’s Wyoming?
Law enforcement agents arrested the three men in Converse County, the affidavit says, and found the pills in their car.
Casper Police Department Detective Schlager spoke with Curtis Green first, when authorities took Green to an interview room in the Casper department.
Green said he’d never heard of Wyoming before this trip, the affidavit says.
He said he’d done “some stupid shit” and would take accountability for his role in it. He was the getaway driver, Green allegedly told Schlager. He said he was from Stockton, California, and the three ended up in Wyoming because they were taking a road trip.
“I just feel hella stupid right now, for real for real,” said Green, according to the affidavit. “I just feel hella dumb.” Green said he was concerned over how his family would look at him; how they’d take the news.
The three friends knew each other from Weston Ranch High School in Stockton, he said, and had been friends for years. He was going to school to become an electrician but recently he “needed the money.”
This was the first time he’d been in trouble with the law, said Green.
The other suspects allegedly indicated that the three were scoping out another Walgreens on the west side of Casper, but green said they were “just chilling” at that Walgreens, and that he was hoping to fill a prescription there.
Green’s interview ended when he asked for a lawyer.
Because, Instagram
Schlager spoke with Charles Jemison in a separate interview, who allegedly admitted that he was the lead man, who’d leapt into the pharmacy.
He wasn’t getting paid enough at his job back home and he had five children, he told Schlager.
Jemison said they decided to leave Stockton because they all needed money. They left the evening of May 25 and arrived at Casper at about 2 p.m. May 26, he said, adding that they may have chosen Wyoming for the job because when they typed Walgreens in to a Google search, the Walgreens in Casper popped up.
But Instagram was their inspiration for robbing the Walgreens, Jemison said, according to the affidavit.
They watched a video on Instagram months earlier showing them how to rob a Walgreens and go for the “hydros,” or hydrocodone.
Jemison was hoping to get $9,000 total, to split three ways, the affidavit relates. He said he wanted to take the pills back to Stockton and sell them.
Jemison also allegedly admitted that there was marijuana in their KIA.
They’d lurked at the west-side Walgreens that afternoon, he said, but that store did not have “the vibes.” The affidavit says they wanted to rob it, but they didn’t have a good feeling about it.
Jemison suggested they all go home, but they’d driven 15 hours to get to Casper, the affidavit relates, so they talked themselves into robbing a store.
“It didn’t hurt to try,” Jemison allegedly recalled from those hours.
Here’s The Plan
When he got into the pharmacy and learned that the opioids were in a delay-timer safe, he crouched down while waiting, Jemison said.
Green was waiting in the car outside, the affidavit says.
Joshua Slaughter was supposed to be watching, making sure no one saw when Jemison leapt over the counter, and watching for anyone calling police. The plan, the affidavit alleges, was to leave everything and run away if someone called police.
The three friends were on a three-way call together during the robbery, Jemison said. He tried letting them know that he had to wait out the safe timer but it sounded like Slaughter was talking to someone.
Jemison said he didn’t have any weapons on him during the robbery. He said the object he was pointing in his hoodie pocket had been his cellphone, the affidavit says.
But when police searched the car later, they allegedly found a small pistol magazine and rifle ammunition.
Jemison denied that they tossed anything out of the KIA as they fled. They eventually stopped their getaway, the affidavit says, because Green crashed the car.
During the car chase Jemison was on the phone with his mother, and with his girlfriend, he told Schlager.
Gotta Get Back
The Instagram robber who’d inspired this plan had used a real gun, had gotten caught, and was released the next day, Jemison allegedly told the investigator. So Jemison thought he’d get released even sooner since they didn’t use a gun, he said.
He really wanted to bond out and get home because he had to work Sunday, according to the affidavit.
Baby On The Way
Joshua Slaughter also was concerned with going home, and said he was not a bad guy. He’d recently learned he had a baby coming soon and was “just trying to make something happen,” the affidavit relates.
Schlager asked for the passcode to Slaughter’s phone, but Slaughter didn’t give him that.
This was his first “quick money scheme,” Slaughter allegedly told the investigator, and he hoped to make about $2,000 to set aside for his child.
The other Walgreens they’d lurked at on the west end of Casper looked bad, said Slaughter, so they didn’t rob that one.
He really wanted to go home. But they went ahead with the robbery because “sometimes you get outvoted,” says the affidavit.
During the robbery Slaughter started talking to a woman who asked him if he saw something. She told Joshua to go to the front door, for his safety, Slaughter recalled. He started to go, got nervous and ran out the front door of the Walgreens, out of the building, behind a nearby Staples store and into the getaway car, the affidavit says.
Jemison soon got into the car as well and they fled, according to the document.
There’s The Marijuana
Police took the three men to the Natrona County Detention Center without incident.
Meanwhile another Casper Police Department detective applied for and received a search warrant for the car. He allegedly found a scale, a small pistol magazine, and rifle ammunition, as well as the stolen pills, marijuana and drug paraphernalia.
Police estimate the stolen pills included 2,137 hydrocodone pills, 477 hydromorphone pills, 741 of oxycodone, and 244 of methadone. They totaled about $4,715, the affidavit says.
The suspects’ prosecutions are ongoing.
Jemison faces additional charges of aggravated robbery, a felony, and felony kidnapping, for allegedly confining the pharmacy employees.
The court file lists Stockton, California addresses for both Jemison and Slaughter, but says Green is “homeless” in Stockton.
Contact Clair McFarland at Clair@CowboyStateDaily.com
