Suspects to have no contact with Subway or each other

Greencastle Subway

All three suspects in the bogus Dec. 15 robbery of the Greencastle Subway restaurant have now made initial court appearances.

And suffice it to say, they won't be in line for $5 foot-longs any time soon.

Subway employee Hayley R. Ellis, 21, Coatesville; former Subway worker Matthew R. Davidson, 19, Greencastle; and Joshewa D. Lizotte, 19, Greencastle, have all been charged in the case.

After Ellis' initial hearing before Senior Judge James E. Harris Thursday in Putnam Circuit Court, all three suspects have now been ordered to have no contact with any Subway store nor set foot on Subway store property.

Ellis, who allegedly made the phone call to police to report the bogus robbery, is charged with theft, conspiracy to commit theft and false informing.

Davidson and Lizotte are both facing two counts of theft.

Not guilty pleas have been entered for all three suspects.

At Thursday morning's hearing, the court appointed Greencastle attorney Trudy Selvia as pauper counsel for Ellis and set bond at $500 cash. As of Thursday afternoon, she remained in the Putnam County Jail.

Ellis is scheduled to appear for a 9 a.m. pretrial conference on Thursday, Feb. 9.

Scheduled for a 10 a.m. pretrial conference that same day is Lizotte, the lone member of the accused trio who apparently has never been employed by Subway.

Local attorney Joel Wieneke was appointed to represent Lizotte, who has posted $500 bond for his release from Putnam County Jail.

The third suspect, Davidson (who was initially identified in police documents as Matthew Richardson), will have his pretrial conference at 10 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 16. Davidson is being represented by public defender Sidney Tongret.

Davidson has also posted bond and been released from jail.

Davidson and Lizotte -- who according to court records room together in a Bloomington Street apartment -- were each given a no-contact order, banning them from talking or meeting with any other defendant in the case.

Early on in the investigation, police suspected the reported robbery as an inside job, which was confirmed through the help of store videotape and reported confessions given to Greencastle City Police Det. Randy Seipel.

Police noted that the would-be intruders seemed to exhibit inside knowledge of Subway's nightly closing procedures. The restaurant's front door is locked at 10 o'clock nightly, meaning there would be no patrons in the dining area as a skeleton crew cleaned up and ran the drive-through window.

The suspects reportedly agreed that while Ellis was closing, Davidson and Lizotte would enter the restaurant, 1360 E. Indianapolis Rd. in the Shoppes of Greencastle center, and make it look like a robbery.

After they departed, Ellis would inform police and Subway management that she had been robbed.

The undisclosed amount of cash was then split up between the three suspects, police said.

The contrived incident unfolded just after 10 p.m. Dec. 15 after Ellis said she opened the back door and went outside to dump the trash. She told police she was then overpowered by one intruder while two others ran inside and took cash from the registers and safe.

Davidson and Lizotte also reportedly confessed to police they had been smoking the banned synthetic marijuana substance K-2 (aka "Spice") before the incident.