BELMONT, NC (WBTV) -
Police in Belmont say they got an unexpected surprise when a man accused of robbing a pharmacy walked into the police station to confess. He said he woke up with the stolen pills after taking sleep medication.
Officers told WBTV that Michael Richardson, of Mount Holly, came into the station on Tuesday to confess to the crime.
The robbery happened at the Walgreens along Wilkinson Boulevard on Friday, according to Belmont Police Chief Charlie Franklin.
Officers say a man came into the store and demanded Oxycodone. He told the pharmacist that he had two friends with him and he was going to get the medication one way or another.
The pharmacist then gave the robber two bottles of pills valued at $276, police say, and then drove away in his Jeep.
"We take things like this very serious. The officers knew who they were looking for when this person came to the police department to talk," Franklin told WBTV.
"Basically [Richardson] came in and told officers that he was getting ready to go to bed when he took the sleep medication Ambien," Franklin continued. "He claimed the next thing he remembered he was waking up in his Jeep in a Charlotte shopping center parking lot with two bottles of pills."
According to police, Richardson told officers that he knew the pills weren't his but he didn't remember how he got them or what happened. Franklin said when he found out the Walgreens was robbed he contacted police.
"He was very apologetic, he said he was glad no one got hurt," Franklin told WBTV.
Franklin said when Richardson came in to confess he did not turn the stolen drugs in, saying he threw them away.
Richardson was charged with Common Law Robbery and placed in the Gaston county Jail under a $25,000 bond.
