Police Seized Narcotics From Suspect's Home Following CVS Robberies

Galloway Township Police seized narcotics they believed to have been stolen from the CVS in Smithville following a search of Deborah Conover’s home Thursday night, Lt. Chris Doyle said Friday morning, Jan. 25.

Conover was arrested in connection with three armed robberies of the store on Dec. 29, Jan. 8 and Jan. 24 on Thursday afternoon.

While Doyle said a CVS employee did provide information that helped lead to Conover’s arrest, he wasn’t sure if that employee would be collecting all or part of a reward that was donated by Purdue Pharma LP, which operates RxPATROL, a collaborative effort between industry, pharmacists and law enforcement to collect, collate, analyze and disseminate information on pharmacy theft.

Atlantic County CrimeStoppers representatives said they were not involved with offering or distributing the reward.  CrimeStoppers rewards generally are no more than $1,000.

Without going into specifics of the case, Doyle said police don’t believe Conover was part of a larger drug distribution ring, despite allegedly robbing the same pharmacy three times in just under a month. Each time, Conover allegedly stole a large number of pills after approaching the pharmacist with what appeared to be a gun inside a plastic bag.

“The safety and well-being of our customers and employees is our highest priority,” CVS Pharmacy Director of Public Relations Erin Pensa said Friday morning via email. “We have security policies and procedures in place at all of our stores and we regularly review them to ensure effectiveness.  However, we do not comment on specific security measures or on the current investigations underway since we don’t want to jeopardize them. We are committed to ensuring that CVS/pharmacy remains a safe environment for our customers to shop and fill their prescriptions.”

Locally, CVS managers and employees are not permitted to comment.

Galloway Police responded to the scene Thursday morning following the third attempted armed robbery. Following a search of the area, police discovered Conover, who matched the description of the suspect, on Waterview Drive and took her into custody.

Police then secured a search warrant of Conover’s home and recovered an unspecified amount of narcotics. Police also didn’t describe the type of narcotics they recovered.