PADUCAH, Ky. -- Surveillance cameras were rolling when a hotel employee turned the tables on a robber Monday night, Oct. 7.
Police in Paducah, Kentucky said Cory Phillips, 26, was arrested on charges of first-degree robbery and receiving stolen property after a traffic stop Tuesday afternoon. This, after he was forced to leave the Country Inn and Suites on McBride Lane in Paducah without his gun.
According to police, the hotel employee said a man came in just before 10 p.m. Monday -- brandishing a handgun and demanding money. The employee threw money on the counter, and the robber placed his gun on the countertop in order to collect the money and place it in a plastic bag.
That's when the employee seized the opportunity to grab the gun -- pointing it at the robber, who fled the scene. He came back inside, police said, and the employee once again pointed his own gun at him. He then turned and left the hotel in a vehicle.
The handgun was recovered by police at the hotel, along with a shirt and sock hat found nearby.
An investigation revealed the gun was stolen from a home on Adams Street in Paducah on Sept. 20.
On Tuesday afternoon, a McCracken County deputy stopped a gray Dodge Stratus on Bridge Street in Paducah after he saw the driver was not wearing a seat belt. The driver, identified by police as Cory Phillips, acted nervously, and in the vehicle, the deputy found an Apple computer that had been reported stolen in the same burglary of the home on Adams Street, and a shirt like the one found near the hotel robbery scene.
Phillips was charged in connection with the robbery and receiving stolen property and booked into McCracken County Regional Jail.