As Shane Parsons sits in New Haven Correctional Center awaiting a Wednesday court appearance in Waterbury to answer to bank robbery charges in that city, Newtown police have allegedly tied him to the June 13 heist of the Game Stop store in the Sand Hill shopping plaza, officials said.
The suspected game store heist is in addition to allegations he robbed the Newtown Savings Bank in Newtown and ; tried to burglarize a Middlebury home on June 12; and burglarized a home in Brookfield on May 5 and half-dozen other homes in Newtown from March through May, officials said.
Parsons additionally has an outstanding charge of criminal possession of a hypodermic instrument dating from a May 7 arrest in Harrison by Westchester County police, according to officials there.
In that arrest, Parsons was a passenger in a vehicle that was stopped by police on the Hutchinson River Parkway because of a faulty muffler, according to Westchester County police spokesman Kieran O'Leary.
Police later observed several hypodermic needles in the vehicle, he said. Later when the vehicle was impounded, police found Xbox video game system and other components and items that appeared to have been the proceeds of burglaries, police said. Westchester County police later released him on the misdemeanor charge, and he never showed up for his court appearance, O'Leary said.
In the Game Stop incident, the robber walked into the store on that Sunday morning, casually browsed the shelves before handing the cashier a note demanding money and saying he had a gun, police said. The robber, allegedly identified as Parsons by police, left with an undisclosed amount of money, police said.
A day earlier, Parsons was accused of trying to burglarize a home in Middlebury but was interrupted by the homeowner. Two days after Game Stop, the Naugatuck bank was hit, according to Waterbury police, who were the ones to finally track down Parsons after he tried to rob the Webster Bank in that city.
Parsons, and .
Newtown Police Chief Michael Kehoe said that Parsons, who allegedly stole an Xbox system in the Brookfield burglary, was identified early on -- well before the spree of bank robberies -- as the suspect in the Game Stop robbery as well as the other home burglaries but officials had a hard time tracking him down.
Parsons, who grew up in town, allegedly lacked a permanent home, and bounced around at a number of places, making it difficult to find him and serve an arrest warrant, officials said. For instance, he allegedly first met Valluzzo at a homeless shelter in Danbury, Waterbury police have said.
Newtown and Brookfield police allegedly had an outstanding arrest warrant issued for him in mid-May, according to arrest warrants issued for two of his alleged accomplices in the home burglaries. respectively on June 1 and May 24 and both remained in custody.
"We had him pegged," Kehoe said of Parsons. "We had a hard time locating his place of abode."
Newtown police said they are in the midst of filing arrest warrants for him.
Parsons and Valluzzo are to be arraigned on the Webster Bank robbery charges Wednesday in state Superior Court in Waterbury.
