John Rainwater, 42, who is already facing a slew of charges in Waco on June 17, 2023, is now charged with aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon in an armed robbery at Ollie’s Bargain Outlet that happened a few weeks before the jewelry heist, an affidavit states.
On May 26, 2023, Rainwater ambushed an Ollie’s employee who was walking to his truck in the parking lot outside the store at 5200 W. Waco Drive, police said.
Rainwater pointed a gun at the employee, warned him not to do anything stupid, then forced the employee to walk back to the front of the store and ask a female employee to open the door, the affidavit states.
Once inside the store, Rainwater demanded the two employees hand over their cell phones, forced them to walk into the cash room, open a safe, and then ordered them to place approximately $5,000 into a backpack, police said.
Detectives investigating the robbery at Boozer’s Jewelers a few weeks later realized the appearance, clothing and build of the suspect in that robbery matched the description of the suspect in the robbery at Ollie’s, police wrote in the affidavit.
Investigators learned Rainwater was driving a white 2017 Jaguar XE with California license plate 9EBZ975 in the area of the Quality Inn & Suites at 1508 I-35 in Waco.
The U.S. Marshals and local police began conducting surveillance at the motel and spotted a man matching Rainwater’s description entering the white Jaguar, an arrest warrant states. The Marshals and Lacy Lakeview police officers tailed the Jaguar and eventually pulled it over near a Kentucky Fried Chicken in the 1100 block of North Loop E340 in Lacy Lakeview. Rainwater was taken into custody.
A search warrant was obtained for a phone found inside the Jaguar that Rainwater claimed to be his. The detectives learned that Rainwater had several women rent hotel rooms for him and also pawn items for him, police said. The woman who rented the room at the Quality Inn & Suites was identified by police as Lawanda Joiner.
Once in custody, detectives listened to Rainwater’s phone calls and learned he ordered several women, identified in the affidavit as Joiner and Tontanisha Freeman, to exchange several jewelry items to be pawned at shops in Austin, police said. Detectives collected some of the jewelry allegedly pawned by Freeman and learned that it was stolen from Boozer’s, affidavits states. Detectives also executed a search warrant at Freeman’s home and found “several items,” the document states.
A search of Freeman’s phone revealed she had been calling and texting Rainwater’s cell phone, police said.
The investigation into Joiner and Freeman, the affidavit states, eventually led .
Glasker was eventually arrested in California, extradited to McLennan County, Texas, and then interviewed by detectives. The woman told them Rainwater was “involved in a lot of things” and had used her car during the armed robbery at Ollie’s, the affidavit claims.
Glasker further told police Rainwater received information about cash operations during closing time at Ollie’s from a former female employee who now worked at a Dollar General. When detectives spoke with that former Ollie’s employee, she told them she would answer Rainwater’s questions but did not know that he was planning to rob the store. That woman is not identified in the affidavit.
Cell phone towers, the affidavit further states, placed Rainwater outside Ollie’s the night of the armed robbery, and the suspect reportedly called Glasker from that location while waiting for an employee to exit the store.
Surveillance camera footage recorded near Ollie’s also shows Rainwater at the store at the same time the calls to Glasker were placed, police wrote in the affidavit.
A search for Rainwater in the McLennan County Jail’s online inmate roster turned up no information.
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