Eyewitness News reporter helps nab bank robbery suspect

(7/07/06 - KTRK/HOUSTON) (KTRK) -- Police were able to nab a bank robbery suspect, thanks to an eyewitness inside the Chase bank police say he just robbed. That eyewitness is Eyewitness News Reporter Deborah Wrigley.

Here's how Deborah Wrigley described the eventful day

The bank is at a busy intersection on Westpark and Buffalo Speedway -- a bank into which I walked Friday morning and saw a bank robbery quietly unfolding.

Ralston Froman, 39, was at the Chase branch bank on Buffalo Speedway standing next to me in line. He handed a note to the teller, saying this is a hold-up. It went on to threaten her life if she didn't turn over the money.

I quietly left the bank. Froman never noticed.

"He's focused on what he's already got on his mind he doesn't pay any attention to what's going on around him," said J.B. Whitely with the FBI bank robbery task force.

He didn't notice that when he left the bank, we were following at a distance down Westpark to a gas station where he stopped to put his license plates back on his car. With 911 on the phone with us, Eyewitness News photographer Johnny Marquez drove in slow pursuit.

"Triangulated with the Bellaire Police Department, followed the guy, and when we saw the police department, Deborah and I signaled that was the guy we were pursuing," he said.

It ended with a lot of guns, Froman in handcuffs, and in an ice chest, the stolen cash was retrieved, along with the holdup note. Police say he also had a parole card in his wallet, but Froman himself wasn't saying much.

"No comment, man," he said as he was being put into a squad car.

But we're told he had a question for police.

"He asked the officer how they caught up with him. He said they were pretty good," said Whitely. "He wasn't aware any citizen was following him."

Froman is now in jail.
(Copyright © 2006, KTRK-TV)

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