Catching Suspects and Solving Crimes in Collegeville Borough
Detective Andy Sohl is our Man on the Case!
With over 23 years’ experience, Detective Andy Sohl is one of our most experienced officers. Over the years he has conducted numerous fraud, theft, embezzlement, burglary, and assault investigations. Although Collegeville is one of the safest towns in Pennsylvania, crime can happen here just as it happens everywhere else.
Recently one of Detective Andy Sohl’s cases was featured in an August Times Herald article.
The article cites the Nov. 28, 2022 robbery of the AT&T Store in the Redner’s Shopping Center. A Philadelphia man, Terrell S. Allen, had been arrested for the crime, tried, and recently pled guilty. He is now awaiting his sentencing from Judge Risa Ferman.
Here is the back story: Officer Andy Sohl was on duty that day and received a panic alarm–which was then updated to a robbery in progress–from the Collegeville AT&T Store at 10:15 a.m, He arrived at the store within two minutes to find that both the robber and the employee—out of fear– had fled.
The robber, wearing a black hat with a Batman logo, a black puffy coat, and whose face was obscured by a black mask, had asked the lone employee for a prepaid phone. When the employee walked back to the safe to get the phone, the man followed him and forcefully knocked him to the floor. He told the employee that he had a gun and threatened to kill him. Allen, the robber, forced the employee to fill a bag with about three dozen i-Phones, valued at about $34,000.
“When I arrived, l secured the store, and found the victim who had fled the store,” said Officer Sohl. “I obtained the details and a statement from him. The alarm company provided details on the tracking device, which had now precisely tracked the robber in real time to the parking lot of his girlfriend’s apartment in the 300 block of Hilltop Drive in Upper Merion Township.
“The Upper Merion police arrived just as the robber was backing out his car. He saw the police and ran into the apartment building. We obtained search warrants for the apartment building and Allen. A standoff ensured and the Central SWAT team made entry into the apartment building. Allen was found hiding in the basement closet and taken into custody without incident. Once they had him in custody, the robber’s car was impounded,” continued Officer Sohl.
The following day, Officer Sohl served the warrant on the car and retrieved the phones, as well as the suspect’s face mask, jacket and hat. The mask was submitted for DNA comparison and later confirmed to be the same as Allen.
But the story doesn’t end there. “While in prison, the suspect called the AT&T store’s employee on a prison phone (which records every call) and threatened to harm him and his young family if he testified against him. Defendants know that if there is no victim, there is no crime and most cases are dismissed,” Officer Sohl explained. “And it worked. The employee didn’t show up for the next two court hearings.”
“Meanwhile, Allen could only be held in prison for a year on his parole detainer and with the case not yet to court, he was released. Allen subsequently did not show up for his jury trial and a “Failure to Appear” warrant was issued for his arrest.
Finally, the witness did attend the court hearing, and now almost two years after the robbery, the evidence carefully obtained by Detective Sohl led to a guilty verdict. “Almost all the police cases solved today are through technology,” explained Detective Sohl. “It’s through DNA, GPS tracking, computer and cell phone data, and other technologies.
Officer Sohl has also worked to solve drug cases for the Borough since 2005, and has done significant undercover work. We are fortunate to have Officer Sohl as a member of our Collegeville Police force!
