BY DOUG HARLOW

Staff Writer

Police in Waterville believe two men wanted in Wednesday's armed robbery of a credit union in Madison were seen at two banks in their city the day before.

"There is a strong possibility that they are related," Waterville Police Chief Joseph Massey said of the incidents.

The Franklin Somerset Federal Credit Union on Main Street in Madison was robbed at gunpoint just before 11 a.m. Wednesday.

The suspects were described as being young black men in their late teens or early 20s.

The men ran into woods behind the credit union with an undisclosed amount of cash, jumped into a a brown Pontiac Bonneville at the Madison boat landing and sped off.

The driver of the car was a white male, who was in the company of two white females.

Five people were in the car when it sped off, police said.

The weapon used in the armed robbery was a pellet gun.

The two robbery suspects are described as being 5 feet, 10 inches to 6 feet tall and of slim build. They both were wearing hooded sweatshirts.

Massey said the suspects in the Madison robbery on Wednesday appear to be the same men whose images were captured on bank-surveillance cameras in Waterville on Tuesday.

"We got a call around five o'clock Tuesday afternoon from Key Bank on Kennedy Drive. The employees there were quite concerned and suspicious of two individuals who had walked into the bank," Massey said. "They described one being a black male and one was a lighter-skinned male, but appeared to be still either a black male or Hispanic.

"They had hooded sweatshirts on, the hoods were up over their head. There was either a bandanna or a T-shirt pulled up over the nose," he said.

Massey added that the weather was hot outside and yet the two men had sweatshirts on with their hoods up.

"They stopped in the middle of the lobby for a moment, they were scanning across the teller windows -- there was some conversation between the two," Massey said.

He said the men walked out of the bank and were next seen at Kennebec Federal Savings Bank on nearby Washington Street, in Waterville.

The bank had already locked its doors, but surveillance cameras caught what looked like the same two men, hoods up and looking into the windows.

"Our detectives are working with Madison police to take a look at their surveillance photos and see if there's a connection here," Massey said.

Meanwhile in Madison, Police Chief Barry Moores said details continue to emerge on the armed robbery, the third such case at the same tiny credit union in four years.

"We had numerous leads come in last night; we're trying to track down a bunch of them right now," Moores said Thursday. "We're investigating every one of them that's coming in. We are kind of prioritizing which ones we're looking at and we'll see what we come up with."

Moores said the two suspects left the credit union on foot, toward the Madison boat landing on the Kennebec River, but he and his cruiser got there first.

The car went off the road, avoiding the roadblock Moores had set up. It then sped off into town and later out of town on Route 43 toward Cornville, Solon and Athens.

"We got the information from people that saw it and said it went up (Route) 43," Moores said. "The last time it was seen it was behind a log truck and (the Pontiac) apparently passed (the truck), and we don't have any idea where it went from there."

Doug Harlow -- 474-9534 ext. 342

dharlow@centralmaine.com