SKOWHEGAN — Police are looking into whether there is a connection between Tuesday’s attempted knifepoint robbery in a union hall parking lot and a similar one Oct. 3 at a market on West Front Street.

In both cases, the man was armed with a knife and wore a hooded sweatshirt with camouflage clothing.

Additional Photos

A digital composite police sketch shows the man sought by police in connection with an attempted robbery at a union hall in Skowhegan on Tuesday night. Courtesy Maine Department of Public Safety

There are no solid suspects in the Tuesday night robbery outside the United Steelworkers Local 9 Poulin-Turner Hall on U.S. Route 201, Police Chief Ted Blais said Thursday.

“We’ve had lots of tips and lots of calls, none of which have panned out so far,” Blais said. “Our detectives have been working on it all day. We thought we had a couple good tips, but we don’t have a good lead at this point.”

Detective Josh King got about 35 calls with information on a possible suspect and the car he might have been driving, Blais said.

The robber was described as a white man with a black mustache, 30 to 35 years old and wearing a camouflage hooded shirt, Blais said.

A woman was sitting in a car in the parking lot when the man knocked on the window with the knife just after 10:30 p.m. Tuesday and demanded money, Blais said.

The robber was apparently deterred when he found the car doors locked, Blais said. No money was taken.

The woman in the car, whose name was not released by police, ran the food concession in the hall, according to Eileen Dinan, who runs Bob’s Famous Auctions with her husband, Robert Dinan, of Litchfield. The two had run a toy auction in the hall earlier that night, but had left before the robbery.

Blais said there are no video cameras outside the union hall. The woman in the car said that around the time of the robbery she saw a white sedan with blue tinted headlights and round tail lights in the area.

On Oct. 3, about 7:30 p.m., a person tried to rob West Front Street Market in Skowhegan at knifepoint.

The would-be robber left the store on foot heading toward Main Street without any money.

Police said he pointed a knife at the clerk and demanded money.

The man appeared to be about 6 feet tall and thin, according to the release, and was wearing a black neoprene mask, a dark green hoodie with a sleeveless army camouflage shirt over it and camouflage pants.

Officers from the Skowhegan and Fairfield police departments, the Somerset County Sheriff’s Department and the Maine State Police responded to the union hall robbery Tuesday night.

A police tracking dog was used in each case, but the scent was lost before it could lead police to a suspect.

In another, unrelated robbery in recent weeks, Jason Mitchell Walsh, 32, of Pleasant Street, Skowhegan, was arrested and charged with robbery and felony theft of drugs. Walsh remains in jail on $50,000 cash bond or $100,000 property bond on charges that he robbed a Rite Aid pharmacy of drugs Oct. 30 under the threat of force and then swallowed some of the pills before being arrested by police.

He allegedly passed a note to pharmacy employees demanding oxycodone tablets, Adderall pills and fentanyl patches, according to court documents. The store is at the corner of Jewett Street and Madison Avenue, an extension of U.S. Route 201.

Walsh allegedly then told a store employee: “Just do it. Just do it. Don’t make me have to do this,” all the while with a hand in his pocket, shaking it. That robbery was captured on surveillance video.

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