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CAMERON - Law officers fear that Kenneth Andrew Tucker - a suspected armed robber who died April 25 at Scott and White Memorial Hospital two days after a shootout with Bell County police near Heidenheimer - may be the only one who knew where the cash was stashed from two Cameron hold-ups.

Cameron Police Chief Patrick Guffey said Monday that leads are “getting kind of thin” in the search for about $8,000 stolen from Sunny Food Mart and The Movie Gallery. Police identified Tucker, 22, of Cameron as the perpetrator in the robberies from store videos.

An hour elapsed between the convenience store robbery and a tip to police that Tucker was in Bell County, Guffey said. Investigators believed from information given by an informant that Tucker was en route to Heidenheimer to buy drugs. When police spotted Tucker at a gas station, he brandished a handgun, challenged officers, and ran into nearby fields. Tucker, who was critically injured during the standoff, “didn’t have anything on him when he was caught,” Guffey said.

“We have been interviewing a few people associated with Mr. Tucker, trying to determine who saw him, when, first and last, and basically trying to find out who dealt with him between the robberies and the time he was located,” Guffey said. “So far the money has not turned up.”

During The Movie Gallery robbery, about $150 was placed into a blue Classic Bank bag, and later in the day, between $7,000 and $8,000 was taken from the convenience store, Guffey said. Police are trying to trace Tucker’s movements.

Though police had information that Tucker never went home after the robberies, they have thoroughly searched his house in Cameron, Guffey said.

The next step will be to visit with the Milam County Crime Stoppers board to approve a cash reward for information leading to the stolen money, Guffey said.

If someone should stumble onto the money, police advise that they turn it over to authorities, because if serial numbers from bills taken in the robberies should surface, the holder could face arrest for possession of stolen property, Guffey said. And sometimes companies give the finder a cash reward, he said.

And if the money is never found? “Honestly, I could not tell you,” he said. “I have never come up to a situation where the money hasn’t turned up, eventually.”

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