ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - St. Louis Police have arrested a suspect in the armed robbery and killing of a 28-year old woman in the drive-thru of the Starbucks in the 2300 block of South Grand Tuesday morning.
St. Louis Police spokesman Mitch McCoy says 58-year old Keith Brown was arrested in his home in North St. Louis.
In a Tuesday press conference Mitch McCoy says "last (Tuesday) night, SLMPD Intelligence detectives were conducting investigative operations into a homicide suspect. As they were surveilling the residence of that homicide suspect, the suspect left his home and began traveling. Our detectives started to conduct rolling surveillance on our homicide suspect until the man was taken into custody in the 3700 block of North Grand. The suspect is identified at 58-year old Keith Brown he was arrested and taken to our Homicide division for questioning. Our SWAT team then executed a search warrant at his home."
McCoy says "during that search warrant detectives located evidence linking our homicide suspect to two separate robberies. The first robbery occurred on February 6th just after 1:00 pm in a parking lot of a fast food restaurant. The victim was in a drive thru when the suspect approached the victim, robbed the victim, and then fired a shot into the air after the robbery. The suspect was reportedly wearing a bright reflective vest during the holdup."
McCoy says "the second robbery occurred on February 8th, just after 6:00 pm at Dollar General in the 4000 block of North Grand. After the robbery occurred and the suspect exited the store, the suspect fired two rounds into the air. During the holdup the suspect was wearing a neon vest along with a construction hard hat.
"Yesterday (Tuesday) around 10:00 am district officers responded to reports of a shooting in the drive-thru of the Starbucks in the 2300 block South Grand. When officers arrived they found a 28 year old woman who had been shot. She was rushed to the hospital where she died. Homicide detectives were called in to lead that investigation. Our Homicide detectives worked hand and hand with FBI St. Louis to ultimately identify a suspect and bring that person to justice for this horrible act of violence.
"Information obtained at the scene led us to searching for a man who wearing a bright reflective vest wearing a construction hard hat, all similar characteristics from our two prior robberies that occurred."
At the press conference McCoy says I think you all noticed yesterday (Tuesday) right after this occurred, we put out very clear description of the suspect. We were working with that intelligence of knowing what had happened prior which is why we started, all hands on deck to get this very armed, very dangerous person into custody as quickly as possible."
KMOX wanted to know why video or pictures of the first two robberies on February 6th and 8 were not immediately released. McCoy said, "one of our immediate concerns was that is this potentially the same person and that ballistic evidence was not matching up. However, there is evidence based off of the probable cause statement that links this person to all of these robberies that we located inside of his home. That goes into that question you had is if you knew this was the person why not put it out. You can only assume but the ballistic evidence also wasn't, wasn't matching between both crime scenes."
KMOX asked McCoy even though ballistics didn't match up, since the clothing was so distinct, and the same in both the Dollar General and fast food restaurant robberies, why not put the video or pictures out there so the public could see it. McCoy says "I drove along South Grand yesterday at Jack in the Box and I saw probably two dozen of them, group of them were right across the street working on the water lines. So, we have to be responsible, we have to make sure that we are always weighing public safety verse call for alarm. At the end of the day people's outfits change every single day. There was not a clear, uh, there was not a clear sign that this person was responsible for the two prior robberies until we saw what happened at Starbucks." KMOX asked McCoy if the person's face could be seen on video or pictures in the first two rooberies. McCoy says "it was very hard to see, in one of them he was wearing a hat that covered most of his face, but you could still see his eyes, but the video was just not that uh, it just wasn't that good in one of those cases."
The woman who was killed in the drive thru at Starbucks is Sam Linehan. She was a figure skating coach at Metro Edge Figure Skating Club. Her biography reads:
Sam grew up skating on Synergy synchro teams competing at the juvenile, intermediate, and junior levels between 2008-2015 and returned as a member of the 2022 adult team. She represented Team USA with synergy from 2013-2015 and was a member of the junior team when they won the silver medal at the 2014 U.S. Synchronized Skating Championships. In 2023, Sam made her senior level debut as a member of Hockettes Elite 12 before returning back to Synergy in 2024. She has earned her Gold medal in Skating Skills.