Officers with a police dog are seen Jan. 17 searching the area around the Big Apple store on Elm Street in Waterville following a report of a robbery. Dylan Tusinski/Morning Sentinel file

AUGUSTA — The woman accused of robbing a Waterville store at knifepoint last week made the fateful decision hastily after her life and her child’s were threatened by a drug dealer for whom she had a longstanding debt.

That’s according to what the woman told authorities, as detailed in a police affidavit released in court this week.

Casey Glidden, 42, of Vassalboro, is charged with a Class A count of robbery and a Class C count of terrorizing with a dangerous weapon (a knife) in connection with the robbery of a Big Apple store on Elm Street in Waterville the night of Wednesday, Jan. 17. Glidden made an initial appearance at the Capital Judicial Center in Augusta on Monday related to the charges.

According to an affidavit written by Detective Daryl Gordon II of the Waterville Police Department, the 911 call of a robbery at the Big Apple on Elm Street was reported at 7:05 p.m. The caller said the robber was a woman wearing a dark coat, sunglasses and pink pants.

Casey Glidden

The woman, later identified as Glidden, approached the store register with a Sprite soda drink and pulled out a pocket knife, pointing it at the cashier. She demanded money from the register while threatening “to knife” the female cashier, who handed over $211. As Glidden allegedly turned to leave, she “threatened to cut” a man who was a customer standing near the door.

Glidden, who was wearing slippers, fled from the store on foot. Both slippers were later found in the parking lot by responding police.

A witness told police he saw the woman run out of the store and lose her slippers in the parking lot as she bolted toward Spring Street and Silver Street. A Maine State Police dog started tracking the suspect but stopped when officers learned the robber had been picked up in a vehicle.

Two women later told police that Glidden approached them on Silver Street, asking to use their phone to call someone. Glidden later got a ride to a residence on Oakland Street, leaving her sunglasses behind as evidence in the vehicle, before getting a ride back home with her boyfriend.

Watching surveillance video, police were able to get a description of the gray Volkswagen Jetta that stopped down the street from the Big Apple to pick Glidden up.

On Friday, Jan. 19, police located that vehicle and conducted a traffic stop on Barnet Avenue in Waterville. Glidden, who was driving, “looked like the robbery suspect in the videos,” the affidavit states, and police interviewed her about the Big Apple robbery.

Glidden told police “my drug dealer made me do it,” and that she had owed money to the dealer who “had a gun to her head” and gave her “20 minutes to come up with the money or he was going to kill her kid.”

“She said he threatened to kill her and her child,” the affidavit states. “She said she was in debt and the debt went on way too long.”

Glidden allegedly told police she was sorry for the robbery and she knew she had scared the store clerk.

“She said she was driving by and just stopped and did it,” Gordon’s affidavit states. “She said she had witnessed him (drug dealer) beat people and she was terrified.”

Glidden confirmed she stole the Sprite soda and about $200, “which went to her dealer” who lived on Oakland Street.

Glidden’s boyfriend later admitted to police that he drove her to the Big Apple and that he “tried to talk her out of it,” and he didn’t actually think she would do it and was surprised she did.

The affidavit did not say whether police spoke to or are pursuing Glidden’s alleged drug dealer on Oakland Street.