WICHITA FALLS (KFDX/KJTL) — The suspect in Sunday morning robbery at a Wichita Falls Stripes store is jailed on bonds totaling more than $100,000.

According to the jail roster, Mario Escobar Jr., 37, of Vernon is charged with aggravated robbery and evading arrest.

Police responded to a holdup alarm at the Stripes on Holliday Street just after 6 a.m. Sunday, March 5, 2023. They discovered the store had been robbed, and the suspect had left the scene.

The clerk told officers a man with a handgun wearing a blue flannel jacket, red ball cap and a bandana demanded cash and lottery tickets and fled on foot with $20 cash and $300 worth of lottery tickets.

An officer responding to the scene reported he had a Hispanic male running from him north toward 9th Street but he was unable to catch him. Police set up a perimeter around the area and said they found a suspect hiding in some bushes next to buildings at 9th and Holliday.

They also found a blue flannel jacket, a red ball cap and a bandana in the bushes, and
24 lottery tickets stuffed in his left pants leg and two $5 bills and two $10 bills in the bushes.

In 2010, Escobar was one of seven defendants arrested in Vernon after a federal and local drug investigation. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.