A North Carolina man who deputies said robbed area banks while wearing a series of bad wigs was indicted Friday by a Bedford County grand jury.
William Myrl Smitherman, 19, of Clemmons, N.C., was indicted on one count of robbery and one count of use of a firearm in the commission of a felony relating to the robbery of the SunTrust branch on U.S. 221 in Forest.
Smitherman was unaffectionately dubbed “Joe Dirt” by authorities here after three different bank security cameras captured images of a man wearing a series of bad wigs, reminding one prosecutor of the comedy “Joe Dirt,” in which the lead character goes through life with a mullet wig permanently fused to his scalp.
The SunTrust branch in Forest at the corner of Old Graves Mill Road and U.S. 221 was robbed Feb. 3 by a man wearing a wig and a baseball cap.
Authorities compared images from the SunTrust bank’s cameras with images of a robber captured in the January robbery of banks in Galax and Roanoke. They said they were convinced the same man robbed all three.
Smitherman was arrested near Winston-Salem, N.C., on Feb. 6, two days after the Forest robbery. He has already been indicted in Roanoke and a Galax judge ruled there was enough evidence against Smitherman to send robbery charges to a grand jury.
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