Nearly one year ago, Antwan Ressel and a friend went on a brief crime spree, police said, burglarizing homes and robbing people, including an elderly Washington Boro woman whose home they hit twice.

On Tuesday, the 22-year-old Ressel pleaded guilty in Lancaster County Court to a long list of offenses that could keep him in jail for the rest of his life.

And he was caught, police said, all thanks to the elderly woman's keen eye for detail.

Judge Joseph Madenspacher accepted Ressel's guilty plea to the list of charges, which included robbery, burglary, theft, conspiracy, receiving stolen property and gun violations. The judge ordered a background investigation before he imposes sentence at a later date. The maximum penalty could total more than 200 years in prison.

Madenspacher explained to Ressel that the background check would help him fashion an appropriate sentence and take into account personal information, both good and bad. The bad includes the fact that Ressel was in trouble before, the judge noted, and the good is that Ressel earned his high school diploma while he was in confinement.

Ressel, of East Marion Street, and Randall James Hecker Jr., 19, of Calvert Lane, were arrested in January of this year after police followed them to a Columbia Avenue storage unit, which detectives said was filled with about $4,000 worth of stolen electronic items.

The arrests ended a two-week crime spree that began Jan. 3, police said, when the men broke into a 76-year-old Washington Boro woman's home shortly after midnight, waking her from a sound sleep.

Ressel was holding a bolt cutter in his hand, police said, as the robbers demanded guns, money and cookies. She had no weapons, the woman later told police, but she gave the men cookies and $100, which was all the money she had.

The robbers left.

Then, several days later, the robbers returned to the woman's home, demanding more money.

She gave them more money, police said, but this time the elderly woman got a good look at their car and the young woman waiting for them in the vehicle. She called Manor Township Police and gave them a description.

That same night, city police said they received a report of a robbery on Michelle Drive in Lancaster Township.

When they arrived, police said, the victims, a 55-year-old man and a 56- year-old woman, told them that they were inside their home when the doorbell rang.

The man answered the door, found no one there and stepped outside to see who rang the bell. He was confronted by two masked men, one of whom was pointing a shotgun at him.

The victim grabbed the barrel of the gun and struggled with the pair as they punched him repeatedly. Finally, they left.

From the elderly woman's description of the car, Manor Township Police Detective Sgt. James Alexander said, detectives were able to identify the woman, Ashley Smith, 22, Conestoga, and track the trio to a motel in the Wrightsville area.

The next morning, police followed the trio to a Columbia Avenue storage facility and watched as they opened up the door to a storage unit.

When police approached, Ressel took off running, detectives said, but was caught after a brief chase. Hecker and Smith were taken into custody without incident.

Investigators connected the group to a series of burglaries and robberies in Manor Township, Millersville Borough, East Hempfield Township and Lancaster City.

Hecker and Smith were also charged with an assortment of crimes and their cases are still pending in court.


Staff writer Janet Kelley can be reached at jkelley@LNPnews.com or 481-6026.