HANCOCK COUNTY — A former McDonald’s employee who tried to rob the fast food outlet in Mt. Comfort last summer at gunpoint has been sentenced to four years in prison.
Tere M. McCall, 30, Indianapolis, and prosecutors agreed to the sentence. She faced as much as 16 years in prison on the Level 3 felony charge. Judge Terry Snow of Hancock County Superior Court 1 accepted the agreement and sentenced McCall late last week.
McCall said little during her court appearance on Wednesday, Dec. 4. Deputy prosecutor Kevin Kelly noted the three victims of the crime, who were working at the McDonald’s at the time of the attempted armed robbery, supported the plea agreement.
Deputies from the Hancock County Sheriff’s Department were called to the McDonald’s, 2290 N. County Road 600W, on Aug. 16, on a report of a robbery by a woman who left the scene in a green Jeep Liberty.
According to a probable cause affidavit, employees told deputies a woman wearing a McDonald’s uniform had knocked on the drive-through window and identified herself as “Charlotte” from the Sunnyside Road store. She told the employees she was there to pick up apples before the store opened.
According to the affidavit, employees told police they did not think much about the request because “things like that happen.” Once inside the store, the woman pulled a gun and pointed it at the three employees. She then ordered one employee to open the safe and tried to put the other two employees into the freezer.
However, when the suspect took the employees to the freezer area, the employee who had been ordered to open the safe ran out of the restaurant, the affidavit said.
The suspect then told the other employees she wasn’t going to hurt them and said she had children. She then left the building, the affidavit said. Video surveillance supported the victims’ accounts, the affidavit said.
Officials then went to the Knightstown McDonald’s and spoke with an employee there named Charlotte, who told them she had been made aware of the incident but could not think of anyone who might use her name, the affidavit said.
After investigators shared a photo with other law enforcement agencies, the owner of a McDonald’s in Carmel said he had an employee named Tere McCall who resembled the suspect. When the owner asked McCall if she knew anything about the incident, the affidavit said, she denied involvement.
Police soon learned that McCall had a green Jeep Liberty. Investigators by then also had a Crime Stoppers tip saying McCall was the person who committed the crime.
McCall was later identified as having worked in 2013 at the McDonald’s in Hancock County, under the name Tere Booker-Benitez.
All three victims of the robbery later identified McCall in photos as the person who attempted to rob the restaurant, the affidavit said.
McCall also faces two felony charges, including a Level 3 felony charge of armed robbery, in Howard County. McCall became a suspect in a robbery Aug. 19 at a Village Pantry in Kokomo after police reviewed photographs. Investigators said the suspect was driving a green Jeep.
