Man Held In Armored Car Killing Traffic Stop Nets Guard Suspected Of Shooting Partner, Stealing Cash

An armored car guard suspected of fatally shooting his partner and stealing $300,000 was taken into custody on Thanksgiving in Utah.

The Utah Highway Patrol stopped Thomas Wheelock on Interstate 15 near Centerville, Utah, just north of Salt Lake City.

“It was a routine traffic stop for a registration plate violation,” UHP spokesman Verdi White said.

Officers were on their way from California to Utah to identify the suspect, who was being held in jail in Farmington, Utah, for investigation of robbery and homicide.

Police allege the 20-year-old shot and killed his partner late Monday or early Tuesday morning, leaving the armored car in San Ramon on the east side of San Francisco Bay. They later found most of the money hidden under a mattress in a Sacramento hotel room and arrested an accomplice.

The arrest ended an intensive manhunt that began after the body of 30-year-old Rodrigo Cortez was found bloody and in a fetal position inside the armored car.

Wheelock was last seen in Red Bluff on Tuesday, when California Highway Patrol Officer Richard Barr spotted him on Interstate 5 about 80 miles north of Sacramento. Barr said Wheelock was having trouble with the 1985 Ford Bronco he had just purchased.

He helped get the broken-down vehicle towed to a service station, where it was fixed. Wheelock reportedly paid the bill in cash and told the mechanic he was headed to Portland.

Officer Barr didn’t realize until the next morning that the man he helped was Wheelock.

Shortly after, a SWAT team apparently just missed Wheelock in a pre-dawn raid Wednesday at the motel room, where he left most of the money.