Son, and mother's boyfriend, subdue mother's suspected robber

TRENTON, Ohio - One time was enough for the family of a woman robbed outside of a Trenton Walgreens last week.

Anita Campbell was leaving the Trenton Walgreens on Monday, March 11 when a man robbed her of her purse. On Friday, Campbell's boyfriend and son caught the same accused thief in the parking lot of the Walgreens on West State Street and Wayne Madison Road trying to rob another woman.

"I just wanted her to drive back by the police where all this happened," Phillip Campbell, Anita's son said.

Driving past the Walgreens, Phillip Campbell said his mother saw the same man, in a gray hoodie, attempting to rob someone else.

"My mother, pretty much at the top of her voice says, 'That's him,'" Phillip Campbell said.

It was then that Phillip and his mother's boyfriend, Bobby Patrick, pulled up to the drug store and jumped out of Anita Campbell's car to confront Joseph S. Hilliard.

"He got his mouth down on my arm," Phillip Campbell reported. "I felt teeth, and I punched him in his head."

Phillip and Patrick were able to subdue Hilliard until Trenton police arrived.

Hilliard's alleged second victim, Heather, said she did not let go of her purse when Hillard attempted to rob her, and she is glad she didn't as it stalled him long enough for Phillip and Patrick to subdue him. Heather is former military police in the Air Force who was stationed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton.

And though police recognized the pair's act of heroism, the department does not recommend residents take such direct action.

Hilliard was not armed, nor were Phillip Campbell and Patrick.

"I didn't care," Patrick Campbell said.

Hilliard was charged with one count of aggravated robbery and one county of robbery. Late Friday, Trenton police also arrested Dee Ann Lipp, 24, of Trenton. The department said Lipp acted as the getaway driver for Hilliard.

She was charged with one count of complicity to aggravated robbery and one count of complicity to robbery.

Hilliard, police said, admitted to the robberies to support a heroin habit.