One day after a robber fled Webster Bank with a handful of cash, the New Haven Police Department made an arrest.

The robber approached the bank teller Thursday afternoon and passed a note threatening to shoot the teller if he did not receive money from the drawer. Although the robber did not present a weapon to employees or customers, the teller complied and handed him cash with a hidden red dye pack. The dye pack exploded as the robber fled the scene, staining his clothes and the money. According to a Monday press release from City Hall spokesman Laurence Grotheer, police arrested the suspect after receiving a tip from a local pizzeria that someone had purchased a pizza with red stained cash.

“With the help of the community, and the work of the New Haven Police Department’s Officers and Detectives, our suspect was caught, literally, red handed,” NHPD Chief Dean Esserman said in the release.

The pizzeria employee provided detectives with the information needed to locate the suspect. When detectives arrived, they found illegal drugs and the dye-soaked money and clothing in his possession.

Police identified the suspect as Derrell Soulds, 38, who had also failed to report to his parole officer, according to Grotheer in the release. Soulds was taken into custody for an outstanding arrest warrant for the robbery of the Ion Bank in Waterbury, which occurred last Wednesday. Today, the NHPD obtained an arrest warrant for Thursday’s Webster Bank robbery.

Police have charged Soulds with robbery in the first degree, larceny in the second degree, threatening in the second degree and possession of narcotics. He is currently incarcerated on a court set bond of $200,000.

Before it signed a sponsorship agreement with Yale University Athletics, Webster Bank signed a similar agreement with the University of Connecticut in 2012.

 

SARAH BRULEY