Pharmacy bandit draws 29-year term

• Seth Curtis was convicted of four felonies stemming from a July 2011 holdup at a Muncie pharmacy.
• Curtis was linked to that crime by DNA tests on a soft-drink bottle he left at the crime scene.
• The ex-Muncie man has now been convicted of armed robbery in Delaware, Jay and Adams counties.

MUNCIE – “I was using anything I could put in a syringe,” Seth T. Curtis said Thursday of his drug abuse in the summer of 2011, when he held up a Muncie pharmacy and stole $10,000 worth of prescription medication. “The needle caught me, and it had a hold of me.”

A Delaware Circuit Court 3 jury in November found the 29-year-old former Muncie resident guilty of two counts of armed robbery, intimidation and auto theft in that holdup, at the CVS store at 415 E. McGalliard Road on July 8, 2011. Witnesses said Curtis also held a handgun to a customer’s head, and fled in a pharmacy clerk’s car after demanding her keys.

Judge Linda Ralu Wolf on Thursday sentenced Curtis to 29 years and six months for his convictions.

“Mr. Curtis put everyone in danger at that store,” the judge said. “(He) must live with the consequences.”

Chief Deputy Prosecutor Judi Calhoun had noted the terror experienced by those in the store that day.

“No one deserves to be treated like that,” she said.

Curtis won’t begin serving the sentence imposed Thursday for several years. First he must serve six years stemming from a 2002 Jay County armed robbery conviction.

And then he has 15 more years to serve for a 2012 Adams County armed robbery conviction. That stemmed from a holdup at a CVS store in Berne — a month after the Muncie robbery — that ended with an off-duty deputy shooting Curtis.

The defendant claimed Thursday that being shot saved his life, as it led to his incarceration and ended his years of drug abuse. Noting he has been in jail for most of his young daughter’s life, Curtis said, “A good parent ain’t a drug addict.”

Curtis said his many tattoos were a testament to a lifetime of “bad choices” that were now behind him.

“I look like a villain,” he said. Calhoun later commented she was inclined to agree with that assessment.

Public defender Alan Wilson tried to persuade the judge to impose a 12-year sentence, to be served at the same time as one of his client’s other prison terms.

Contact news reporter Douglas Walker at (765) 213-5851. You can also follow him on Twitter @DouglasWalkerSP.