Suspect in Joplin bank robbery no stranger to the crime

May 13—If police suspicions and federal court and prison records are correct, Vincent P. Gepson may be more incorrigible than good at robbing banks.

The 63-year-old suspect in a Monday morning robbery of the Great Southern Bank at 1232 S. Range Line Road in Joplin remained at large Thursday, a day after he was charged with the crime in federal court in Springfield.

It certainly would not have been Gepson's first go-round as a bank robber.

A Kansas City FBI SWAT team stopped and arrested him in December 2008 tooling down a highway near Neosho after a series of holdups of banks and credit unions in Omaha, Nebraska, and Council Bluffs, Iowa.

According to the 2010 annual report of the U.S. attorney's office in the District of Nebraska, the six robberies "were conducted in a similar fashion."

"Gepson would enter the banks and present a note demanding money from the teller. He would brandish a BB gun or show the teller an air pistol suggesting that he was carrying a firearm," the report reads.

At the time, Gepson already had rung up two prior federal convictions for bank robbery. He picked up two more, as well as state robbery convictions, in the adjudication of the 2008 spree and was sentenced in 2011 to 140 months in a federal prison.

Bureau of Prison records show that he was granted early release on parole eight years later but had that revoked in 2019 and did not get out again until April 30, 2020.

The man who robbed the Great Southern Bank in Joplin shortly after 10 a.m. Monday was wearing a surgical mask over the bottom part of his face and a bandage on his neck.

He walked directly up to a counter and demanded money, informing a teller that he had a gun and wanted $100, $50 and $20 bills. The suspect brought a white plastic bag with him and made the teller put the money in the bag before he walked back out the front door and left the area in a dark-colored SUV, according to witnesses.

Joplin police released a bank surveillance photo of the suspect within minutes of the crime, seeking public assistance in identifying him.

Before the morning was over, Detective Sgt. Luke Stahl received a telephone call from a man identifying himself as Vincent Gepson, according to a probable-cause affidavit penned by FBI Special Agent Stacy Moore and filed in U.S. District Court in Springfield with the criminal complaint on Gepson.

The man on the line told Stahl that although the photo of the suspect put up on the Facebook page of the Joplin Police Department might resemble him, he did not rob the bank. He had been in Pea Ridge, Arkansas, that morning, he told Stahl.

The caller refused to meet with Stahl to discuss the matter, however, and told him the only officer he would speak with was Anderson police Detective Aaron Lemon. Gepson apparently has been living in Anderson in recent months, as that is the place of residence listed for him in a Joplin Police Department news release identifying him as the suspect in the robbery.

Moore called Lemon after Stahl spoke with the caller who claimed to be Gepson, and Lemon informed Moore that he had been in contact with a woman who works for the Economic Security Corp. in Anderson. The woman told him that Gepson had been in her office Monday morning and asking for a mask.

Gepson told her that he had a medical appointment to keep and needed to be wearing a mask to the medical office. She provided him with a mask that she subsequently confirmed was "similar" to the one worn by the suspect in the robbery, according to the affidavit.

Lemon further told Moore that Gepson had required several surgeries on his legs and walks with a distinct limp. A review of bank surveillance footage showed the suspect walking with such a limp.

After speaking with the caller who claimed to be Gepson, Stahl had dug up booking photos from prior Joplin police contacts with Gepson. Those photos showed that Gepson was heavily tattooed on his hands and arms and had a tattoo on the left side of his neck where the suspect wore a bandage.

Moore wrote in the affidavit that tattoos visible on the bank robbery suspect appeared to match those seen in Gepson's booking photos.

By Monday afternoon, police had received a call from an employee of R&R Tire Express in Webb City who believed the suspect pictured in the surveillance photo had been at the business that morning to make a $212 cash payment on his account.

The employee believed the customer made that payment about 10:30 a.m., less than 15 minutes after a panic alarm at the bank alerted police to the robbery.