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Sandra Yi ReportingPolice have arrested the Oxycontin bandit. They found him in a South Jordan motel last night. After his image, which was captured on surveillance video, was broadcast on TV, police received more than 60 tips and that led to an arrest.
Sgt. Victor Quezada: "He was upping the stakes and each time he would do this, that's what got us concerned."
His image and the crime was caught on tape several times, but Chad Mecham was able to elude police, until last night. Officers spotted his car at the Sleep Inn Motel in South Jordan.
Sgt. Victor Quezada: "He was out of the hotel when we were getting ready to do a knock and talk on the door. As he was coming out of the hotel, he was going to sit on the curb and smoke a cigarette."
Mecham confessed to police that he robbed the pharmacy at Alta View Hospital yesterday. He handed the pharmacist a note, claimed to have a gun, and demanded the popular prescription painkiller, Oxycontin. He got away with 130 pills.
Authorities suspect Mecham is also behind at least five Oxycontin robberies at other pharmacies in the Valley.
Sgt. Victor Quezada: "He did admit to selling the pills and also using them every day."
One officer told us, the pills can go for as much as 80 dollars on the street.
Sgt. Victor Quezada: "It sounds like he was making pretty good money off of it."
The demand for Oxycontin is high, and the addiction so powerful that some pharmacies don't keep the drug on site. A spokesperson for Walgreens says its stores have made security changes. She says stores will continue to fill Oxycontin prescriptions, but they may filled somewhere else.
Police say Mecham had a small knife with him, but they didn't find a gun. They're investigating to see whether he has ties to other robberies in the Valley, and in other states as well.
