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Update: Hostage drama plays out at Tinseltown

Aundrea Lee Darrel Brown

By LEE WILLIAMS
lwilliams@TheCitizenNews.com

The second suspect sought for his involvement in a botched armed robbery at Tinseltown Tuesday that led to a 24-hour manhunt that included over 100 law enforcement officers is now in custody.

Darrel Brown, 45, of Douglasville, was arrested about 1:30 a.m. Wednesday by a small band of officers who guarded the 17-screen movie theater overnight in hopes of finding the suspect.

“We had reduced it to just a basic perimeter around the outside of the building. We had just a few officers on the inside of the building,” Fayetteville police spokesman Detective Steve Crawshaw said Wednesday afternoon. “While those officers were inside they started moving around in the building just sitting in different areas to see if they could hear anything. While they were doing that they started noticing some things out of place, places he might have been, so they started looking into that.”

An out of place movie poster led them to the suspect.

"They looked down in between two sections of walls and they saw some insulation and stuff and he started moving a little bit,” Crawshaw said. “They gave commands. He stood up, raised his hands and gave up from there.”

Brown’s co conspirator, Aundrea Lee, 28, of Powder Springs, was arrested by Fayetteville police early Tuesday morning shortly after one of the employees at Tinseltown tripped the panic alarm.

Police arrived and found two managers tied to a chair at the business.
The suspects allegedly fled in the ceiling. Lee was captured, but Brown got away.

One of Lee’s feet fell through the ceiling of the two-story building. An officer grabbed his foot and Lee fell from the ceiling. Lee was taken to the Fayette County Jail for booking.

A handgun allegedly used to hold the managers of the movie theater up was recovered at the scene. However, no one was injured in the mayhem.

Charges are pending, but both suspects will likely face charges of armed robbery, kidnapping and false imprisonment, Crawshaw said.