Short spree for this bank robber

This seems like a rather remarkable feat of law enforcement action. Yesterday (Thursday 2/9/12) just before 4pm a Bank of America branch bank was robbed in Midland, Texas. (Photo source.)

Then around 10 hours later a suspect was arrested about 20 miles away. See CBS7.com:

February 10, 2012
UPDATE 2:54 PM
In a joint investigation, the MPD and FBI have arrested Mark Willman (DOB 9/30/69) for the bank robbery at 4309 Garfield on February 9, 2012
Update 10:15AM
The FBI is confirming that the bank robbery suspect from the Bank of America Thursday afternoon has been arrested and is in federal custody.
He was arrested at 1:20AM at a hotel in Odessa.
He is expected to be federal court this afternoon.

MyWestTexas.com is very good about posting warrants, so if they do it this time hopefully we might get more details on how the FBI and MPD identified and captured him so quickly.

P.S. KWES.com says the hotel was the Royal Inn, a hotel that must be so exclusive it isn't even listed at Hotels.com.

Comments

[Jeff]

George, an interesting aspect of this case is a clue one of the television stations received in a comment on it's social media page ... a name, that led to a search of the suspect's own page (with photos), and so on.

Not much of a stretch to imagine we'll be sseing more of this in the years ahead.

[Geo]

Thanks, Jeff. I had not heard that, but it certainly makes sense. I believe law enforcement is making good use of Facebook. There have even been cases in other cites where robbers bragged of their misdeeds on their Facebook pages. Apparently they didn't realize just how public they are.

[Stewart Doreen]

The suspect's name also was mentioned twice on the Reporter-Telegram's Facebook page not long after the photo and original story were posted.

http://www.mywesttexas.com/midlandcrime/article_1e2784a6-5435-11e1-b5cc-0019bb2963f4.html

[Geo]

Stewart, even better, the MRT posted a PDF of the Criminal Complaint. That's a real service you provide to your readers.

I wonder whether it was the FBI or MPD officers who tracked down the taxi driver who took Mr. Willman to Odessa. In either case, there must have been some time consuming yet beneficial police work involved.

As for the MRT facebook page, I'll have to take your word for it. I tried to find the photo you mentioned and kept getting a popup saying I had to log-in to continue.

[Jeff]

Stewart, apologies for the miss, and a hat-tip to the MRT's Facebook page. At the time of my first comment, I only had the televisison station's brodcast to go on (re: the social media contacts). Later, when I posted somethi9ng on this to my own blog, links were provided to reports from the MRT and KWES-TV.