With a grin and a gun, man robs woman, 83, of ring
Diamond wedding band forced off finger
By Nancy Needham nancy@theacorn.com

Surveillance video MOOD SWING- Jewelry store's owner said her mother told the robber "Don't do this. Don't do this."

A man who charmed an 83year-old female jewelry store worker before pointing a handgun at her head and forcibly removing her diamond wedding ring is being sought by authorities.

After coming into Hampshire Jewelry, 15 Hampshire Road, earlier in the week and again at around 10 a.m. on Sat., Dec. 1, the dark-haired man's image was caught on surveillance video when he returned to the store at about 2:30 p.m.

Each time the man described as handsome and polite visited the store, he pretended to be shopping for an engagement ring, store owner Janet Dill said. A photo from the tape depicts a man wearing a white sweatshirt and lightcolored blue jeans. He looked relaxed as he calmly spoke to Dill's mother, Pat Curts, whose husband, Bert, 83, was sitting nearby.

Then the customer, who had appeared calm and in no hurry, pulled out a hidden handgun and pointed it at Pat Curts' head. He grabbed at her diamond ring and pulled, forcing it over the swollen knuckles of her arthritic finger.

Surveillance video

As the two struggled, Bert Curts stood up to go to his 5-foot, 120-pound wife. The robber turned the gun on him. Bert went back momentarily to where he had been seated, then he got up again, ignored the violent threat and walked toward his wife.

The armed man left the store with Pat Curts' diamond ring, which had been her mother's wedding band, another diamond ring that he had looked at earlier, and a loose diamond, Dill said.

"He told her he'd kill her. She kept telling him, 'Don't do this. Don't do this,'" Dill said.

The Curts, Dill's parents, have worked at the jewelry store for 27 years. The two were not at work on the day male armed robbers hit the store in 2005, Dill said.

The person police are seeking, described as a clean-cut white male, 30 to 35 years old, with a buzz haircut, blue eyes and a stocky build, may be the same man suspected in similar robberies of the Décor Store on Aug. 20 and Just for Guys on Sept. 14.

All the stores are on Thousand Oaks Boulevard, the suspect's description is the same, and in each case he talked with his victims before robbing them of personal jewelry, according to Detective Eric Buschow, Ventura County Sheriff's Department spokesperson. The sheriff's department has asked anyone with information about the robbery or the identity of the man shown in the surveillance photo to call major crime investigators at (805) 494-8201.

Ventura County Crime Stoppers will pay up to $1,000 for information leading to the arrest and filing of a criminal complaint against the person responsible for the crime. Police said callers remain anonymous and the call is not recorded. Crime Stoppers is at (805) 494-8255 (TALK).