Chief Relates Details In Two Arrests

It was a terrifying few minutes for . East Greenwich Police Chief Tom Coyle told Town Council members Thursday night just what took place during both that aborted Frenchtown break Monday and an armed robbery at Sunnybrook Farm on Main Street Tuesday night.

According to Coyle, when the doorbell rang at the house on Frenchtown Road west of Tillinghast, the girl (whose age has not been released except to say that she’s under 15) looked out. When she didn’t recognize the man at the door, she called her mother and hid in a bathroom. While on the phone with her daughter, the mother used another phone to call police.

After no one answered the front door, the man walked around to the back of the house and used a crowbar to pry his way in. All the while, the girl was in the bathroom getting more and more upset, Coyle said.

“Luckily, I had an officer right in the area. He got there and spooked the suspect, who … went through the woods where he took off his clothes,” Coyle related. “He had another change of clothes and was picked up by a female.”

Through tips and clues left behind by the suspect, police were able to find the driver — Trisha M. Newman of Central Falls, who provided an identification of the suspect. Newman was arraigned Thursday on a charge of conspiracy to commit a crime. A warrant has been issued for Bruce McKenzie of Cranston.

In the armed robbery at Sunnybrook Farms, the suspect, Samuel T. Lemont of Bayberry Lane, walked around a lot after he arrived at the store Tuesday evening.

"He was in the store, casing the store, walking back and forth, acting really suspiciously," Coyle said. "He kept asking people when they came in to the store for milk and such, for directions, looking conspicuous."

Coyle said Lemont at one point asked to use the store phone.

"We traced that call back. He used that phone to ask somebody to pick him up five minutes after," Coyle said.

Coyle said the young main eventually came to the register, displaying a large handgun. He got between $300 and $350 before leaving. But the phone call along with photographs from the store's video surveillance, led police to Trafalgar apartments on Post Road just south of Old Forge.

While police were there, a taxi cab pulled up and the suspect, Samuel Lemont, 18, got out. Lemont is the son of State Police Captain John Lemont, who was shot in the line of duty in 1994.

Coyle said the gun Lemont used during the robbery was a "simulation handgun, which looks exactly like a handgun. It fires like a handgun but it fires what we call in training projection pellets."

Lemont was charged with first degree robbery and is being held without bail, Coyle said.