Suspicious device left at Needham bank

FBI says robber may be tied to Wellesley holdup

By Eric Moskowitz, Globe Staff  |  April 4, 2009

NEEDHAM - Just hours after a man robbed a Needham bank and left a suspicious device at the counter yesterday, the FBI offered $25,000 for information leading to his arrest, saying they believe he could be the man involved in a similar robbery in Wellesley last week.

Dressed in a black hooded sweatshirt, the man robbed the TD Banknorth branch in Needham Center and left the device at the teller's window before fleeing on foot up Great Plain Avenue toward Wellesley, just before 4 p.m., police Lieutenant John Schlittler said.

Security camera footage from the bank showed the man, gloves on his hands and his face covered, approach a teller with what appeared to be a gun in his right hand. He placed a bag on the counter and removed what looked like three sticks of dynamite bound together.

Neither the FBI nor Needham police would say what the device was or if it was a genuine bomb, only that the crime was similar to a March 26 robbery at a Bank of America branch in Wellesley. In that case, the robber left a device on the bank's counter minutes after another suspicious device was found at a pay phone at a supermarket less than a half-mile away. "The events are similar, and we believe they're connected," FBI spokeswoman Gail A. Marcinkiewicz said last night.

Multiple witnesses said the man got into a "small, boxlike" car, green or blue, driven by a woman, Marcinkiewicz said.

Although the FBI is treating the Needham and Wellesley bank robberies "as one event," Marcinkiewicz would not say if the FBI considered them to be linked with similar incidents. On March 23, police found a device with wires connected to it attached to a pay phone in the parking lot of St. Bartholomew Church in Needham, along with a note that referred to Needham High School, which was evacuated.

Three days before that, a bomb scare was called into South Elementary School in Holbrook minutes before the nearby Randolph Savings Bank was robbed. The culprit fled in a green 2009 Toyota Tundra before setting fire to the rented vehicle.

Although authorities would not say if the device was a bomb, a Needham woman evacuated from a business across the street said a firefighter who cleared the building called it a bomb.

"I asked him, 'Is this a bomb threat, or is it a bomb?' He said, 'No, it's a bomb,' " said Cory Lewkowicz, who was with her son at an acupuncture appointment at the Needham Wellness Center when it and dozens of other businesses were forced to shut down and evacuate.

Police cordoned off a broad section of Needham Center after the robbery, clearing restaurants and shops and rerouting traffic for about two hours. Yellow caution tape ran across Great Plain Avenue and other downtown streets, encircled the town common, and even snaked around a bronze statue of children dancing and playing.

With a mix of nervousness, surprise, and awe, local residents and shopkeepers huddled under awnings, beyond the police tape, as they watched a bomb squad robot move about in the rain.

"Did you see that? That little remote control chair is moving all over the place," said Mary Collins, who owns the Abode antiques and home furnishing store, from her awning at Great Plain and Dedham avenues. Calling Needham a "Norman Rockwell town," she said she was stunned by the development.

Eric Moskowitz can be reached at emoskowitz@globe.com.