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Sandra Yi and Cleon Wall reporting A traffic stop led to the arrest of a suspected robber. The man is a suspect in several business robberies in Taylorsville, and he was arrested in the neighborhood.
Suspicions were raised when detectives cited Lloyd Pace on a traffic stop last week.
Detective Troy Martinez, with the Taylorsville Police Department, said, "They identified him as possibly matching the description that we put out from the robberies in Taylorsville."
They cited him for having an open alcoholic container in the car. Further investigation, including witness IDs, led to Pace's arrest yesterday at an apartment complex.
Brandy Reeder says she came face to face with Pace last month inside a Taylorsville flower shop. Reeder was arranging flowers behind the counter with her back to the door, when, she says, Pace grabbed her arm. She thought he was a customer. "I turned and I smiled, and I was like, 'What?' And he showed me his gun, and I was like, 'Oh wow, this is really going down. We're going to get robbed right now,'" she said.
She says Pace pushed her to the front counter, where the manager was helping a customer. "And he said, 'Get all the money out, get all the money out. I want all the money in the back.' And I'm like, 'We don't have money in the back," Reeder said.
She says another man acted as a lookout. When a customer pulled up, the men grabbed the money and left. "They were just really in a hurry. They wanted to get in and get out, and if that customer hadn't shown up, I don't know when they would have left," she said.
Police in Taylorsville believe Pace is the man behind the Fashion Bug, Flowerama, Scone Cutter, Subway and Little Caesars robberies that happened between May 28 and June 2. The other robberies took place in the Salt Lake valley. Martinez said, "Luckily, nobody's been hurt, but we got him off the street before somebody did potentially get hurt."
Police say Pace is the man shown in a surveillance video from a robbery at a Subway. His partner stands by the door. Victims in other robberies say they recognized the men in the video because they wore the same clothes. Martinez says people could easily identify Pace because he never covered his face during the heists.
Reeder, for one, feels a little safer now. "We didn't think they were going to find them, just there's too many people. I was like clapping and 'yeah!'"
According to the FBI, during interviews with law enforcement officials, Pace took responsibility for the robberies. We checked court records and found Pace has a history of drugs and robbery. He's facing federal charges. Police are still looking for his accomplice.
E-mail: syi@ksl.com
E-mail: cwall@ksl.com
