DOMANIC Butler walked into a small Wagga service station, clicked his fingers in the direction of the console operator and said: “money, money”.
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If the meaning of the words was not clear enough, Butler, then 19 but now aged 20, held a knife by his side.
The service station worker tried to yell out, but was frightened he would be attacked and instead fled outside and told two customers: “he is stealing, he is stealing”.
The customers saw Butler standing behind the counter and then take $431 in cash from the till before escaping on a mountain bike.
The couple followed Butler in their vehicle and saw him dump the knife down a stormwater drain in Mount Austin before losing sight of him on Bourke Street.
Police arrested Butler at the Wagga railway station the next day and he admitted not only to the October 17 armed robbery, but also to a series of break and enters that day and the day before.
Butler in Wagga Local Court on Wednesday pleaded guilty to three counts of break and enter and commit serious indictable offence and one count each of armed robbery, larceny and break and enter with intent to commit a serious indictable offence.
The teenager, from Orange, was living in Wagga with a family member in October last year when he went on his crime spree in Mt Austin and Turvey Park.
According to agreed facts tendered to the court, Butler stole a mountain bike from the garage of a Mair Street house on October 14 while the owner was working in the backyard.
On October 16, Butler entered a Mimosa Drive house and took a mobile telephone from a bedroom.
The next morning, he ransacked a Blamey Street house and stole $150 in foreign coins which he later discarded at a hotel.
Surveillance camera footage obtained by police showed Butler dumping the coins in the pokies room.
Sometime between 7.45am and 5.10pm the same day, Butler ransacked a Bluett Crescent house after prising open a window with a flathead screwdriver he found on the back verandah.
He fled empty-handed after hearing a car pulled up in the driveway.
Butler also broke into a Rudd Street house that day and stole $100 case and a nine-carat diamond and sapphire ring.
Again, he fled when he saw a car pulling up in the driveway.
Butler will be sentenced in Wagga District Court on a date to be fixed.
After that, he will be sentenced in the Local Court for bashing a prison guard and setting fire to his cell in the Junee jail.
The court heard on Wednesday a psychological report would be prepared to assist the courts in sentencing Butler.
