Dropped EBT card leads police to South Greensburg man after store robbery

A South Greensburg man was arrested in connection with a Tuesday robbery at a convenience store after state police said he dropped his EBT card on the floor.

Troopers were called to the Par Mar Store on Route 136 in Hempfield shortly after 1 p.m where a clerk reported a man with a claw hammer jumped onto the counter and demanded money from the cash register, according to court papers.

He made off with $300 and $20 in gas from the BP station, police said.

Employees told investigators the same man came into the store three times before the robbery and tried unsuccessfully to make purchases with different forms of card payments. Surveillance video showed he dropped one of those cards inside the store.

Troopers found the card, and their suspect — Matthew A. Shashura, 28.

A photo of him was confirmed to be the person in the surveillance video of the robbery, according to court papers. He was arraigned Tuesday evening, seven hours after the incident, according to court records.

Shashura is charged with robbery, theft, reckless endangerment and related offenses. He was being held at the Westmoreland County Prison after failing to post $100,000 bail.

A Dec. 30 preliminary hearing is scheduled. Shashura did not have an attorney listed in online court records.

Shashura previously spent time in the Washington County Correctional Facility on abuse of a corpse and conspiracy charges.

He was sentenced in 2022 to four to 23 months, according to court records. Shashura and another man were arrested in early 2022 after the body of Rebecca Jordan Kloster, 33, was found in a wooded area in in Cecil, police said. She was reported missing Jan. 19, 2022.

Court papers filed by police indicated the trio used drugs at a motel and surveillance video showed the two men putting an unresponsive person in the back of a vehicle and driving away.