Two charged with robbery; clerk refused to give up cash

PALMER — A Palmer grand jury on Friday formally charged a man with trying to rob the Valley Country Store in Wasilla.

According to an affidavit Sgt. Mike Burkmire filed in the case against Michael Hedley, 23, troopers were first called to the store just after midnight on Jan. 21 when the store’s clerk reported the robbery.

The clerk described the robber as a man in a black hooded jacket with scar-like marks on his face and a stubble beard. He said the suspect’s gun was black and looked to be either a Colt Elite model 1911 or Kimber 1911.

According to Burkmire’s affidavit, the clerk “stated the male suspect first placed the gun on the counter and told (the clerk) that he was sorry. The male suspect also stated that he hated to inform (the clerk) that he was going to have to rob (him) that night.”

The suspect then pointed the gun at the clerk and demanded he hurry up, Burkmire wrote. The clerk refused to give the man the $280 cash he had in the till and instead told him he was being taped with a video camera.

“The male suspect looked toward the camera and then fled the scene,” Burkmire wrote. “(The clerk) also had a firearm in the rear waistband of his pants. (The clerk) pulled his handgun from the holster as the male suspect was fleeing.”

Judging from Burkmire’s report, neither the suspect nor the clerk fired any rounds.

According to the affidavit, at around 12:16 a.m. trooper Duane Leventry showed up. He found a red Plymouth Sundance backed up in a driveway on Alder Drive and talked to the driver, Nichole Dale, who was lying down in the front seat.

Burkmire writes that Dale told Leventry she’d been driving around Wasilla with a man she called “Mike H” and that somewhere around Alder Drive she’d run out of gas and Mike had gone to the store to get some more. After he left, she managed to get the car running again and backed up into the driveway.

“Dale later stated that she did not know for sure that Mike H was carrying a gun but figured that he was since he always does,” Burkmire wrote.

Though she didn’t know his full name, Burkmire wrote, Dale mentioned that Mike had talked to Wasilla police officers the day before as police investigated a possible stolen vehicle.

That bit of information allowed troopers pull up a Wasilla case number and get a last name for Mike. The person officers talked to, Burkmire wrote, was Michael Hedley. Troopers got his driver’s license photo and showed it to Dale, who said that it was indeed the man she had been driving around with.

Some 16 hours later, Hedley showed up in Anchorage. Burkmire wrote that Anchorage police pulled over a car for a routine traffic stop at Northern Lights Boulevard and Spenard Road at 4:10 p.m. Jan. 21. Hedley was a passenger.

He was promptly arrested and brought to Palmer, where troopers were able to talk to him. He gave a slightly different version of events, making no mention of leaving Dale on a back road while he went to fetch gas.

“Hedley stated that he and N. Dale went to the Valley Country Store to rob it,” Burkmire wrote.

Hedley told troopers that Dale parked behind the store and he walked over to do the deed.

“Hedley stated that ‘the old man wouldn’t back down.’” Burkmire wrote. “Hedley stated that he wasn’t going to shoot anyone over this and he left the store without getting anything.”

But, Hedley told troopers, when he went back to find Dale she was gone. So he went to a house nearby and got a ride out of the area.

According to the grand jury’s indictment, both Dale and Hedley were charged with first-degree robbery. Hedley was jailed at the Mat-Su Pre-Trial Facility and was still there, as of Monday afternoon, listed as an inmate in jail records. Dale is also still in custody, according to jail records.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.