SANTA ROSA – The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office (SCSO) issued a community bulletin regarding the robbery of a Windsor gas station.
Just before 5 pm on Thursday, August 13, Windsor police officers were dispatched to a robbery at the Shell Gas Station on Hembree Lane. The suspect was described as a white female adult. Witnessed reported that the woman had displayed a handgun to the clerk at the station and demanded money. The suspect left the store with an undisclosed amount of cash taken from the clerk.
She fled from the scene in a silver Toyota 4-Runner and headed northbound on Highway 101. An officer in central Windsor spotted the suspect and attempted to stop the vehicle. The woman failed to stop and led officers on a pursuit that continued up to Healdsburg, then south on Old Redwood Highway back to Windsor at speeds up to 80 miles per hour. Deputies from the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office joined in the pursuit to assist.
At the north end of Windsor, deputies deployed a spike strip and flattened three of the four tires on the suspect’s vehicle. Once it was disabled, she got out of the vehicle and attempted to carjack a passing vehicle. Officers detained and arrested the suspect shortly thereafter.
The suspect was identified as 37-year-old Samantha Mana Bray of Healdsburg. A search of the suspect and her vehicle found that she was in possession of a pellet pistol and cash taken from the gas station.
Bray was charged with robbery, evading arrest, attempted carjacking, and violation of 4 counts of probation. But she was booked into the Sonoma County Main Adult Detention Facility under a different name – Samantha Tamez, and is being held on $54,000 bail.
Under the name of Samantha Tamez, from both Santa Rosa and Healdsburg, she has quite a history with the law. Available arrest records show a charge in September of 2010 for “petty theft with a prior”, a charge that raises the severity of simple petty theft when the suspect has been convicted of the offense before. She was also arrested for being under the influence of a controlled substance. In October that year she was charged with battery, possession of a needle or syringe, stolen property, and petty theft with a prior again.
She was arrested at least three more times in 2010 and 2011 for probation violations and outstanding warrants. In one of those arrests, she was found in a Budget Inn motel room in Rohnert Park with Edward Martinez, who was arrested, along with his brother Ernest for robbery and attempted homicide of two victims. Her connection to Martinez was not known at the time, but the officers handling the case found she had outstanding warrants and arrested her as well.
More recently, she was arrested in October of 2014 for petty theft, vandalism with property damage, and possession of a narcotic controlled substance and paraphernalia. This year, on March 2, she was charged by Healdsburg police with giving false information to an officer, a DUI on May 26, and trespassing on June 6. On July 31 she was arrested at St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Santa Rosa on a probation violation.
Any additional witnesses with information regarding this most recent case are asked to contact the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department Violent Crimes Unit at 707-565-2185.
