A little distraction can work wonders when you're a magician -- or a thief. That was the method chosen by one bandit over the weekend. 26-year old Emerson Jones, Junior was arrested yesterday morning, a few hours after employees at McDonalds say they foiled his attempt to steal money from the drive-thru. Here's how it happened:



Jones appeared at the drive-thru window about 3:30 yesterday morning without placing an order first. He asked a former co-worker to exchange a bag full of quarters for folding money from the cash register. The employee took the money to the office to run through a change counter. In the mean-time, Jones got out of his car window, pulled open the driver through window, and stuck his head and arms in the store. He turned the key in the cash drawer and had a fist full of cash when another employee saw what was going on. She ran into the drive-thru and started yelling at him to put the money back, at which time he threw a $20 and some change at her and sped off. Turned out he'd held onto about 60-dollars, too.



Since they used to be his co-workers, the employees knew exactly who to tell police to look for. Around sunrise, officers spotted Jones and pulled him over. A search of his car turned up several keys that didn't belong to Jones. Officers called the manager of a North Wilkesboro car wash that had been recently burglarized, and he was able to match one of the keys to his master key. Jones faces felony charges of Breaking and Entering and Larceny for the McDonald's incident, and will likely face other charges for the car wash crime. He was jailed in lieu of a 5-thousand dollar secured bond.

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