The Roofman, Part 1
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Who is Mervat Fayyad and what happened at her McDonald's?
Twenty-five years ago, Mervat Fayyad was working at a McDonald's at the corner of North Main and Route 74 in Belmont, North Carolina, outside of Charlotte. She was just out of high school. We met Mervat at McDonald's to talk about one morning in May of 2000, when she arrived to open the restaurant around 5 a.m. with several other employees. There was a lot to do.
Turn on the grills, the fryer, start cooking, prepping biscuits, and start making the tea, fresh tea, fresh coffee, and make sure everything's stocked and good and clean. So I know Grandma, that's what we called her, she was making the biscuits.
Mervat told her boss that she would handle making the tea and coffee right behind the front counter.
And I just see someone that came right from the kitchen to the front counter area. And I see someone standing, but I thought, you know, it was one of the crew people.
The store was still closed. All the doors were locked.
How did the robbery at McDonald's unfold?
And then he said, I need you to get down on your knees and don't. say anything or don't scream. So that's when I turned around and I looked and I saw him. The only thing I can see was his eyes and a little bit of like the nose, but more the eyes because he had a mask on and he was holding a, I believe it was 22 rifle in his hand. And this is when it hit me as an, okay, what is happening?
Mervat got down on the floor. Her boss, who had been in the bathroom, came around the corner and saw the man with the gun behind the counter.
I said to her, this is real. Elaine, this is real. And this is when he asked all of us to just stay quiet and go walk into the office.
Mervat says they were five employees in the restaurant that morning. They were all rounded up and brought back through the kitchen to the hallway outside her boss's office. The man with the gun took Mervat's keys from her. She had a small can of pepper spray attached to them.
When he saw that, he grabbed it and he said, I'm sorry, I'm going to have to take it because I don't want you to do something stupid that would kind of force him to do any harm.
The man told all the employees to lie face down on the floor.
That way we can all be low because of the drive-through window. That way no one can drive and see us. No one was talking. Everything was super quiet. The only thing you heard was... you know the beeping and stuff like that from cooking i know that at one point the grills opened back up because they were cooking sausage and the oven started beeping because there was apple pies in there so one of the crew people that the lady in uh in the kitchen said Elaine, what do you want me to do with the sausage and the pies? She said, well, ask him. He's in charge here.
What were the robber's actions and demeanor during the crime?
And he actually told her that you can get up and remove the sausage and the apple pies from the oven.
And then the man told her boss to open the safe.
He had a bag, and she was just putting all the money that we had in the safe. in the bag so and she was just putting like last night's deposit she was putting all the cash from the registers and when she put all that she said okay i'm done you want the coins and he actually said to her yes i like coins please put them all so yeah she put all the coins that was in the safe that day everything in there for him was it a lot of money
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
Who is Mervat Fayyad and what happened at her McDonald's?
1:09–2:13
2
How did the robbery at McDonald's unfold?
2:13–4:26
3
What were the robber's actions and demeanor during the crime?
4:26–7:54
4
How did the police respond to the McDonald's robbery?
7:54–9:38
5
What is the history of the roofman robberies?
9:38–13:23
6
Why was the roofman difficult to catch?
13:23–38:29