MARYSVILLE — He hadn’t been in town long.
Long enough, it turned out, to blow his $8,000 life savings gambling at the Tulalip Casino and then allegedly rob a bank.
Now, a Texas man is sitting in the Snohomish County Jail under investigation of holding up a Marysville HomeStreet Bank on Friday afternoon.
He’s being held on $500,000 bail and is accused of robbery, assault, theft and being a fugitive from another state.
A police dog named Nuke tracked down the suspect in some bushes about 200 feet from the bank.
He’d earlier made off with about $7,000 after pulling out a handgun and threatening to shoot anyone who hit a bank panic button or reached for a cellphone, according to court papers.
As it turned out, a teller already had called 911. The bandit, 22, ran from the bank with the cash.
He later told police that he knew what he was doing.
He explained that it was “just the mentality of ‘Dude, you just lost everything.’”
He also told police that he didn’t want to spend another night freezing and hungry and his main reason was he had no cash in his wallet.
The Houston man told Marysville police that he also had committed a bank robbery in Humble, Texas, near the end of January, according to court records.
The suspect said that he flew from Texas to Seattle last week because he heard the area had good casinos. He said he lost all of his money playing poker and then slept on a park bench.
The suspect told police: “I saw my life wasn’t going anywhere and I thought I would take a shot.”
He said that he brought two guns with him in checked baggage in the plane from Texas.
He insisted there was no ammunition in the gun he used during the robbery because he didn’t want to shoot anyone.
Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446, stevick@heraldnet.com
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