We’ve shaken our heads and sighed at criminals who return to the scene of the crime too soon after committing it to not get caught, but perhaps it needs to be said: Just don’t ever go back, ever. And certainly not if you’re planning on committing the same dastardly deed that got you locked up in the first place.

A New Jersey man who served 15 years in prison for robbing a Stride Rite shoe store has been accused of committing the same crime, at the same business, after finally walking out of jail a free man, reports The Star-Ledger.

Police say that a little more than 24 hours after the suspect was released from prison, he headed back to the shoe store and demanded cash from the store’s two workers.

He’s accused of grabbing $389 from the cash register, but when he demanded the employees hand over their keys to provide him with a getaway car, they refused and he fled on foot with two cellphones he’d also taken from them.

“He was not armed but just made a verbal threat,” a police spokesman said, adding that the suspect seemed agitated when the workers didn’t move quickly enough. “He took the drawer out himself.”

The employees called the police, who were then able to track the suspect down and locate the stolen phones in a garbage can nearby and the cash stuffed in a gutter downspout. He’s being held on bail and officials are trying to figure out why he keeps returning to this particular town and its apparently attractive Stride Rite.

Just out of prison, man robs Toms River store again, cops say [The Star-Ledger]

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