Polk County sheriff's investigators are hoping to catch a robbery suspect who shot a 62-year-old woman Sunday morning in the Winter Haven area.

  • Victim was shot Sunday morning after stop at gas station
  • Bullet went through woman's arm, into her abdomen
  • $2,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest

Investigators said Melissa Thomas had stopped at a Circle K on Spirit Lake Road at about 5:15 a.m. on her way to work in Lakeland.

That's when Sheriff Grady Judd said a man with his face covered said something to Thomas about her purse.

"And he walks around to the door and points a gun at her and she says, 'Is this a robbery?'" said Judd. "And he shoots her and runs. He doesn’t take the purse. He doesn’t take anything."

The shooter is described as a black male in his 20s wearing a black hoodie with white lettering.

"It went through her arm and into her abdomen," Thomas' mother, Ann Hughes, said about the wounds suffered by Thomas from the gunshot. Hughes said her daughter underwent surgery on her arm Monday morning and that she was holding her own at a local hospital.

Hughes hopes they catch the shooter fast.

"I don't think this will be his first time, and I don't think it will be his last," she said.

Sheriff Judd hopes someone who knows something turns in the shooter.

"You know, even thugs don't appreciate punks like that," he said.

There is a $2,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest.