Paintsville woman arrested in Shell robbery

By TONY FYFFE & Lilly Adkins

BSN Editor & BSN Associate Editor

Police say security-camera video shows Lavonna L. Collins, 33, of Paintsville, robbing the Shell gas station in Paintsville at gunpoint Thursday night.

PAINTSVILLE — A Paintsville woman was arrested Thursday night in connection with an armed robbery at the Shell gas station on Ky. 321 in Paintsville.

Lavonna L. Collins, 33, is charged with first-degree robbery.

According to the arrest report, the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office received a call that a subject had robbed the Shell gas station at gunpoint. Upon arrival, Deputy Bill Holbrook had a female detained and a silver handgun that Holbrook said had been in her possession, the report said.

After placing Collins under arrest, officers located some money laying on the ground that witnesses said she had dropped, the report said.

Video footage from the store’s security cameras shows Collins standing at the counter and when the owner walked over, she pulled a silver handgun out of her pocket and pointed it at him, the report said. The owner put some money on the counter along with some cigarettes, the report said.

Collins jumped on the counter, reached into the drawer and took more money, the report said. She then walked outside of the Shell station to a picnic table when a witness stopped her from leaving the property until law enforcement arrived, the report said.

The amount taken during the robbery was $290.23, the report also said.

Shell employee Kash Patel said Friday that his father, Dineshkumar Patel, was working the counter when the robbery occurred and that another worker had just stepped outside for a smoke break. Two other employees were working in the back of the store, he said.

“He almost had a panic attack, a heart attack,” Kash Patel said about his father. “We had to run him to the ER and get him checked out.”

He said Collins was a regular customer at the business and that her “entire family” shopped their as well.

“I think this is the first time it’s happened around Paintsville, somebody got robbed at gunpoint at a gas station or a business,” Kash Patel said. “I just hope it doesn’t happen to anybody else. And we just pray that it gets better, and we just pray my dad gets better, too.”

Collins was taken into custody and transported to the Big Sandy Regional Detention Center.