An 18-year-old responsible for a one-man crime wave in Salem was convicted last week of six felonies.
Bradley Michael Poff pleaded no contest to abduction, robbery, child neglect, eluding police and two counts of stealing an automobile during a hearing Thursday in Salem Circuit Court. A second robbery charge is pending in 166su County.
Poff
All of the offenses occurred the morning of Sept. 18, spooking the community as teams of police searched for a masked suspect believed to be armed while students sheltered in place at nearby schools.
Salem Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Matt Pollard gave the following account:
At about 7 a.m., a white Nissan Pathfinder was stolen after the owner left it idling to warm up at the Riverside Mobile Home Park.
A short time later, a student waiting at a bus stop in the Cave Spring area was robbed of a cellphone by someone driving a Pathfinder and wearing a black mask.
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Back in Salem, at about 8:40 a.m., a man of the same description approached a nurse in the parking lot of LewisGale Medical Center and demanded that she give him her purse. She escaped by running to a stairwell and the suspect left empty-handed.
A few minutes later, the next victim was a mother who had parked her Audi outside a nearby CVS Pharmacy and left her 5-year-old son, who is autistic and nonverbal, in the car as she went inside to get a drink.
The suspect abandoned the Pathfinder and stole the Audi, apparently unaware that a child was in the back seat. The boy was left on a sidewalk in a nearby industrial area by the suspect, who then sped off.
Police spotted the vehicle and began a pursuit that ended back at the Riverside Mobile Home Park, where the driver jumped out and ran into a heavily wooded area.
The next day, police used data from the stolen cellphone to locate Poff at his father’s home in Salem, where he was taken into custody.
“It was tremendously rare,” Pollard said of the crime spree. “It caused a great deal of concern in the community, especially the fact that a child was taken.”
None of the victims was injured, and the gun Poff was reported to have carried was never found. In exchange for the defendant’s pleas of no contest, prosecutors agreed to drop a firearms charge.
A sentencing hearing has been scheduled for June 26, when Poff will face a maximum sentence of life in prison on the abduction charge and additional years for the other offenses.
Defense attorney Neil Horn said he was exploring options for his client that include the Virginia Department of Corrections’ Youthful Offender Program, which offers alternative placements for offenders aged 18 to 21.
