By David Eck
The Cincinnati Enquirer

NORWOOD - A Northern Kentucky couple has been charged in connection with a day-long robbery spree Thursday that began when a Norwood United Dairy Farmers store was robbed just after 4 a.m., police said.

The couple are also charged in connection with robberies later in the day of a College Hill flower shop and a Miamitown restaurant.

Brent Price, 22, of Florence, and Nikiea Francis, 22, of Burlington, face a string of robbery charges in connection with the three holdups, police records show.

The first robbery occurred at 4:08 a.m. when a man entered the UDF at 5023 Montgomery Road.

"He just walked in and demanded money," Norwood Police Detective Roger Bright said. "He insinuated he had a gun. He wasn't in there very long."

The man fled the store in a 1993 Ford Probe, police said.

The second robbery occurred shortly before 3:30 p.m. at the Floral Connection Flower Shop at 1175 W. Galbraith Road in College Hill.

Again, a man entered the store, indicated he had a weapon, threatened the clerk and demanded money, a Cincinnati police report shows. The man then got away, also in a 1993 Ford Probe.

About an hour later, Guido's Restaurant at 8007 Ohio 128 in Whitewater Township was hit by a lone male.

"He walked in and he pointed what looked like a gun at me through his pocket," Guido's employee Jamie Reed said. "I just looked at him for a couple of minutes.''

The man demanded money.

"I went to the register, gave him the money, and he took off," Reed said.

"I didn't think it was real until he left, and then I was scared. He was calm and nervous at the same time. He didn't yell."

The robber was in the restaurant for about five minutes, she said.

Price and Francis were arrested after Cincinnati police officers stopped a Ford Probe at Hopple Street and Interstate 75 at 5:08 p.m.

E-mail daveck@fuse.net