By NEAL WAGNER / City Editor

Two men are being held in the Shelby County Jail on robbery and theft of property charges after police said they were involved a recent pharmacy store robbery in Helena.

Sterling Edwards, a 19-year-old Birmingham resident, and Anthony Young, a 20-year-old Hueytown resident, were arrested on March 22 and each charged with one count of first-degree robbery and one count of first-degree theft of property.

Both men are being held in the county jail on bonds totaling $500,000 each.

Police said the two men allegedly robbed the Helena Hometown Pharmacy on Shelby County 17 on March 13.

Police said the suspects entered the pharmacy, asked to speak with a pharmacist and then pulled out firearms when the pharmacist approached the suspects. The suspects then began “giving orders to give them all the money,” and demanded “oxys and roxys,” according to Helena Police Department Sgt. Chris Rollan.

Helena Deputy Police Chief Tim Carter said the suspects took about 3,000 pills, a “large quantity of liquid narcotics” and about $800.

Carter said the arrests were “the culmination of the combined efforts and hundreds of man hours” put in by the Helena Police Department and surrounding agencies.

Carter said the U.S. Marshal’s Service served warrants and arrested the two suspects, and said Hoover Police Department detective Clint Blackmon “was instrumental in conducting interviews and gaining vital information which helped identify the suspects and led to their arrest.”