By Shawn McGrath

shawn.mcgrath@heraldbulletin.com

Nearly a week after he broke out of the medium-security Westville Correctional Facility in northern Indiana, 40-year-old Kelvin J. Fuller remains on the run, and police now believe he stopped in Anderson shortly after he escaped.

Anderson police Detective Joel Sandefur, the department’s spokesman, said investigators suspect Fuller was the man who beat and robbed a Village Pantry convenience store early Thursday.

“He looked very similar to the person who robbed the Fishers bank,” Sandefur said.

In the robbery, a man came into the store at 1000 Cross St. about 4 a.m., walked up to the counter and demanded money. Sandefur said previously that the robber claimed to have a gun, but one wasn’t displayed.

The 57-year-old clerk tried to get away, but the robber stopped him from leaving and hit him in the face. The robber then forced the clerk to return to the register and made him open it, Sandefur previously said. The robber fled with an undisclosed amount of money

Police say the robber was a 5-foot-8 inch to 6-foot-tall black man with a stocky build, black hair, a gray scruffy beard and mustache, and wearing a light gray sports shirt and tan pants, a description that matches Fuller’s appearance in surveillance photos taken Thursday during the Fifth/Third Bank branch robbery in Fishers.

Sandefur said Monday that, along with robbing the Village Pantry, Fuller may have visited Saint John’s Medical Center the day he escaped.

Investigators have information that he likely stopped by the hospital about 8 p.m. Wednesday, possibly looking for food.

“He said he needed to find a vending machine,” Sandefur said. “He went to the vending machines and left.

‘We really don’t know (why he went to the hospital). He was there 15 minutes and he left.”

Daleville police apprehended a man they initially believed to be Fuller shortly before 5 p.m. Monday.

Officers in the Delaware County town stopped a vehicle for speeding about 4:45 p.m., and the driver apparently resembled Fuller and didn’t have ID, Sandefur said.

The man was able to prove his identity about a half-hour later and was released. Daleville police couldn’t be reached for comment.