A former South Carolina sheriff’s lieutenant and the husband of a Santa Fe assistant district attorney is suspected in an armed robbery at one local pharmacy and the attempt to rob another pharmacy at gunpoint this week. He remained on the run as of Thursday night.

Santa Fe police and the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office have identified George William Smith, 43, as the suspect who attempted to hold up Wiley Chemists, 1676 Hospital Drive, at about 4:30 p.m. Monday and who robbed a Medicap Pharmacy in the Agora Shopping Center in Eldorado at about 12:35 p.m. Tuesday.

According to a Santa Fe police report, Smith brandished a silver snub-nosed handgun and tried to steal oxycodone from Wiley Chemists. When the pharmacist wouldn’t provide him with the pills, Smith ran away, the report says.

The next day, according to Santa Fe County sheriff’s Lt. William Pacheco, Smith allegedly brandished a similar silver revolver and demanded the same medication at Medicap Pharmacy. Pacheco said Thursday that Smith pointed the gun at the Medicap clerk, who then pointed in the direction of the pills and “ran out of the building.”

Smith allegedly made off with about 500 tablets from the Eldorado pharmacy.

District Attorney Angela “Spence” Pacheco, who approved the arrest warrant for Smith, identified him as the husband of Assistant District Attorney Dorie Biagianti-Smith.

Biagianti-Smith, after recognizing her husband on a TV news broadcast, called police to identify him, Angela Pacheco said.

Biagianti-Smith also confronted her husband the night she saw him on the news, Angela Pacheco said, and he fled soon after.

“This goes against everything she stands for,” Angela Pacheco said of her colleague.

She said the two crimes show that anyone can be affected by addiction to prescription medication. “This just illustrates the problems with addiction to narcotics we have in our society,” she said, adding that Smith used to be a sheriff’s lieutenant in the Myrtle Beach area of South Carolina.

Lt. William Pacheco said Smith was arrested in August in Santa Fe on a charge of being a fugitive from justice because of charges that he was evading child support for children in South Carolina. According to the online court records, that charge was later dismissed.

Carlos said Smith was last seen driving a 2008 Ford Edge with tinted windows, a South Carolina sticker on the back window and New Mexico license plate No. LRJ697. Police believe Smith to be armed and dangerous.

Anyone with information on Smith’s whereabouts is asked to call Detective Josh David with the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office at 986-2496 or Detective Matt Martinez with Santa Fe Police Department at 955-5060.

Contact Nico Roesler at 986-3089 or nroesler@sfnewmexican.com. Follow him on Twitter @nicoroesler.