The incident occurred on Wednesday at the Shell Gas Station on Lincoln Street. The 48-year-old victim, who suffers from cerebral palsy, was picking up her $400 Massachusetts Lottery winnings when the clerk noticed another customer was behaving strangely.
Realizing the small lottery win may have attracted the wrong kind of attention the diligent clerk was so concerned about his disabled customer he escorted her out of the station and saw her safely to her mother's car, parked outside.
The woman who had caused the clerk so much concern, later identified as Wendy Laporte, 38, walked out of the Shell station shortly afterwards and got into a vehicle being driven by Dawud McKenzie, 26.
According to local police, when the disabled lottery winner and her mother drove off Laporte and McKenzie followed them.
When the woman's mother dropped her off outside her apartment, McKenzie—who was now wearing a mask—went on the attack and pushed her into a pile of snow, before threatening to shoot her if she didn't hand over her winnings.
The terrified woman handed over the money at once and McKenzie and Laporte fled the scene.
It did not take Worcester police long to identify the woman's assailants and McKenzie and Laporte have both been charged with masked armed robbery and assault and battery on a disabled person.
