Published: April 03, 2009 12:05 am      

Robbers grab watch at mall jewelry store

A couple got away with what police described as a “high-end” watch in a grab-and-go robbery at Kranich’s Jewelers in The Galleria mall.

Richland Township Detective Tom Keirn said a black man and a black woman walked into Kranich’s shortly after 8 p.m. Wednesday. The man asked to see a man’s wristwatch, which he grabbed from the clerk’s hands, and the couple fled.

Keirn declined to specify the watch’s value.

The couple ran out into a parking lot, where a third person was waiting in a light-colored minivan, Keirn said. They sped off in the van, which the police later learned had been stolen from a mall parking lot just before the robbery.

The van was found in Davidsville at about 10 p.m. Wednesday by Conemaugh Township police.

Keirn said the van had been stolen from a couple who had been at The Galleria on Wednesday night.

Police do not where the robbers or the van’s driver went after abandoning the vehicle.

The heist was well-planned and went off without a hitch, Keirn said.

“It seems these people knew exactly what they were doing,” he said.

From the store’s surveillance video, Keirn said it appeared that the male robber was wearing a blue baseball cap with a white or light-colored brim. He had on a yellowish-colored jersey.

The woman appeared only briefly in the video and not much could be determined about her appearance or clothing, Keirn said.

The robbery was the second at Kranich’s since its opened in The Galleria in September 2000.

The first, which remains unsolved, took place in April 2003 when a man grabbed a 7-carat diamond ring from the hands of a salesman and fled into a waiting car with Florida plates. The ring was valued at $96,000.

He was described as a black man in his late 20s or early 30s, about 5 feet 8 inches tall, with a medium build. He was wearing a tie and a white coat made of material similar to that worn by a butcher, police said.