A 32-year-old man was found guilty of a 2020 Thanksgiving Day robbery and murder of an Arapahoe County convenience store clerk, according to a news release from the 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office.
Samuel Isaiah Birch was found guilty by a jury on Thursday of first-degree murder, two counts of aggravated robbery and tampering with physical evidence, the news release said.
On Nov. 26, 2020, Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to a shooting at the Circle K convenience store at 8263 S. Quebec St. in Centennial, the news release said. Deputies found the store clerk had a single gunshot wound in the abdomen.
After watching the surveillance footage, deputies saw a man wearing a mask and hooded sweatshirt approached the clerk asking for a carton of cigarettes and then “calmly pointed a long barreled revolver through the plexiglass divider and demanded everything in the register,” the news release read.
“Dude, it’s going to be you, your stomach, or the money,” Birch said. “I can shoot you when I leave or I can shoot you right now.”
The clerk complied, and Birch said “thank you” before shooting the clerk in the stomach and walking out, the news release said.
The clerk was taken to a local hospital where he died of his injuries.
Investigators identified Birch by connecting him to a similar armed robbery two hours prior.
“This was an entirely senseless act of inhumanity,” District Attorney John Kellner said. “This defendant needlessly ended the life of an innocent man, who had done nothing but comply with his demands.”
Birch is scheduled to have a sentencing hearing on April 22 in which he faces life in prison for the first-degree murder conviction and additional years in prison for the additional charges.
