Capital murder charges filed against man in Blockbuster deaths

ANNISTON, ALABAMA - Donald Ray Wheat, depicted by authorities as a violent serial robber, has been charged with capital murder in the shooting deaths of four men during a May 15 robbery at a Blockbuster Video store in Anniston, Alabama. <br> <br> The 48-year-old Wheat, who was arrested two days after the shootings, had previously been charged only with robbery. <br> <br> Calhoun County District Attorney Joe Hubbard said today that Wheat was charged with capital murder under provisions of Alabama law that call for a possible death penalty if two or more victims are killed in the same incident and if someone is killed during a robbery. <br> <br> Wheat, who was arrested at his home in Ashland in Clay County, also was charged Friday with robbing an Opelika convenience store, one of five crimes in a six-day span in which five people died and two were seriously wounded. <br> <br> Opelika police Captain Melvin Harrison said Wheat was charged in a May 12 robbery in which a late-night customer was shot in the head by the robber but survived. <br> <br> Wheat is being held in the Anniston City Jail without bond in the capital murder charges and under a one million dollar bond on the robbery charge.