DOERUN — A suspect in an armed robbery in Doerun tried to flee a Colquitt County sheriff’s deputy Friday night. The chase went all the way into Moultrie, where the suspect abandoned his car and was caught.

Travis Bernard Lowery Jr., 20, of Highland Boulevard, was charged with armed robbery, possession of a firearm during commission of a crime and felony fleeing and attempting to elude an officer.

The robbery happened about 9:45 p.m. Friday at the Go-Go Mart on South Mill Street, according to sheriff’s investigator Shawn Bostick. A black male wearing a mask and carrying a handgun entered the store and demanded money, Bostick said. The clerk gave him the money and the robber left.

About the same time as the 911 center received the report of the robbery, a deputy on patrol saw a car driving at a high rate of speed with its lights off on a sidestreet in Doerun. He tried to pull the car over, Bostick said, but it wouldn’t stop.

The deputy — assisted by the Georgia State Patrol and later by Moultrie police — chased the car into Moultrie, Bostick said. The car began to have problems, the investigator said, so the driver abandoned it in the 500 block of 13th Avenue Southwest and ran into a wooded area.

Bostick said deputies caught Lowery in the woods a short time later.

In the car, deputies recovered a handgun like the one used in the robbery as well as money and receipts from the Go-Go Mart dated earlier the same day.

Bostick said Lowery admitted to the robbery when he was questioned and cited his family’s financial problems as the reason.

“He lost his vehicle and he was afraid his parents were going to lose their house because of economic strain,” Bostick said. “He needed some money.”

No one was injured in the robbery or in the chase, Bostick said.