WILMINGTON — A Magnolia man arrested for a 2019 robbery of a gas station was sentenced to 116 months in prison Tuesday. Cory Montan Dixon, 40, will serve time for his involvement in the Circle K robbery on Gordon Road, as well as a car-jacking which ended in a crash at a local elementary school.
Documents and other information presented in court show Dixon and a co-defendant, Ronald Lee Croll — who was sentenced earlier in the year — entered the gas station wearing masks in the morning hours of Aug. 18, 2019. Dixon held up the store clerk with a handgun, later determined to be a BB gun, by pointing it toward the clerk’s head. The clerk emptied the drawer and was escorted by the robbers to the back room to hand over the cars keys; Dixon and Croll then zip tied the wrists of the clerk, who was ordered to lay on the floor.
The two robbers fled the scene in the clerk’s car, with the store’s cash drawer and numerous cigarette packs. New Hanover County Sheriff’s deputies spotted the vehicle along Market Street and began pursuing it, though the robbers attempted to elude officers by speeding through a residential neighborhood. Dixon and Croll wrecked the vehicle into a basketball hoop at Blair Elementary and attempted to flea on foot before being apprehended.
Officers found zip ties, cash, the BB gun, cigarettes, and the cash drawer, along with the clothing worn during the robbery from the vehicle.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office investigated the case; the Wilmington Police Department assisted in the response.
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