Christopher Miller spent 15 years in jail for holding up a shoe store on the Jersey Shore. And just one day after being freed from prison, he went back to the same shoe store — and robbed it again.
“I have no idea what he was thinking,” said Officer Ralph Stocco from the Toms River Police Department. “We thought it was extremely strange ourselves that he would just rob the same store a second time so many years later.”
The manager of the Toms River Stride Rite, who happened to be on duty in 1999, thought she had déjà vu when she saw Miller walk through the door again on Saturday.
“I knew who he was right away,” said the 43-year-old worker. “I just think [he came back] because he didn’t get anything the last time.“
The woman said Miller seemed determined not to botch the holdup as he did two decades ago — and was particularly aggressive as he threatened a teen co-worker.
“He thought he was going to die that day,” the shoe worker said. “He was red and shaking and I didn’t want him to faint.”
The female worker said she wasn’t as afraid of Miller during the first heist — even though he was armed with a boxcutter and tied the workers up.
She said the hardened ex-con was much more menacing this time around.
“I wasn’t fine. I have three kids and I have to think about my kids,” she said. “You’re kind of like, ‘Oh my God, my worst nightmare is coming true.’ ”
Miller ripped the drawer out of the cash register and pocketed the $389 inside.
He also tried to get the victims to hand over their car keys and ordered them to a back room — but the workers refused.
He finally snatched their cellphones, ripped the store phone off the counter, and fled, throwing the cellphones in a garbage can and stashing the cash inside a storm drain on the side of the building, cops said.
He was caught a few blocks away and charged with robbery.
He’s now back behind bars in the Ocean County Jail, where he is being held on $100,000 bail.
“The guy is either really stupid or he just really likes it in jail,” a source at the New Jersey State Corrections Department said when asked why Miller may have returned to the Stride Rite.
Now 40, Miller first robbed the shoe store when he was 25 years old. He used a boxcutter he had stolen from another store to subdue the female worker, who was alone at the time.
She said that he abandoned the robbery plan and fled when a second employee entered the store.
“I wasn’t scared. I knew someone would be coming in five minutes,” she said.
Miller was soon caught and sentenced to 15 years for that heist — and several other similar robberies around the state.
Toms River police said Miller’s last known address was in Tulsa, Okla. They are still trying to figure out why he had traveled to New Jersey to become a serial shoe-store bandit.