Suspect in two pharmacy
robberies caught in Virginia

A man charged with robbing two North Asheville pharmacies was arrested without incident by Front Royal, Va., police on Feb. 4.
Michael Jacob Ball, 37, of Oakley Street in Hendersonville had been charged with robbing the drugstores of cash and painkillers and fleeing to Virginia, where he knows someone, soon after the heists kast month.

The Asheville Police Department had entered Ball into the National Crime Information Center, after which Front Royal police located him and contacted the APD, police said.

“We couldn’t get to him until (Feb. 18) because “Virginia was essentially shut down by the snowstorms in the D.C. area,” APD spokeswoman Melissa Williams noted in an e-mail. “Detectives drove up and back in one day.”