A 29-year-old Alabama man has been sentenced to more than five years in federal prison for 2016 bank robberies in Ringgold, Georgia, and in Priceville and Athens, Alabama, a U.S. Department of Justice news release states.
Garrett Storm Hickey, of Centre, Alabama, was unarmed during the robberies that had been unsolved for three years.
"Diligence by the FBI and our law enforcement partners helped solve these cold case bank robberies," U.S. Attorney Byung J. "BJay" Pak said in the release. "This is also an example of the exemplary cooperation by law enforcement across multiple districts to give closure to the victims and employees of the banks involved while bringing this robber to justice."
Hickey was sentenced in 2017 to just over three years in federal prison after a fingerprint tied him to a July 6, 2015, bank robbery in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Later, while serving his initial sentence, a fingerprint identified by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation lab connected him with the Ringgold robbery. Other evidence, including bank camera photos, linked him to the two Alabama robberies.
In each robbery Hickey used a threatening note and demanded $1,400, the release states.
"If not for the determination of the FBI and our state and local partners, Hickey would be close to being released from federal prison on a single bank robbery conviction," said Chris Hacker, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta. "But because of that collaborative effort, three bank robbery cases in Georgia and Alabama that were virtually closed were re-opened and connected to Hickey."
Hickey was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Mark H. Cohen to five years, four months in prison, with credit for time served, to be followed by three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay restitution of $4,200.
The case was investigated by the FBI's Atlanta-Dalton office, Birmingham-Huntsville office, and Memphis-Murfreesboro office, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation-Region 1, the Catoosa County Sheriff's Office and the Ringgold Police Department, both in Georgia, as well as the Limestone County Sheriff's Office, the Athens Police Department and the Priceville Police Department, all in Alabama.