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Investigators from the Collier County Sheriff’s Office were rushing from East Naples to North Naples on Friday afternoon responding to back-to-back bank robberies that occurred within two hours of one another.

Authorities believe the robberies are unrelated and the fact that they both took place at Bank of America branches in a short time frame initially appears to be a coincidence.

A 52-year-old man was arrested within minutes of the first robbery and later charged with unarmed robbery and grand theft. By Friday night a suspect in the second robbery had not been located, the Sheriff’s Office reported.

The first bank was robbed around 2 p.m. when a man, later identified as John Patrick Dixon, 52, entered the Bank of America at 4898 Davis Blvd. in the Kings Lake Square shopping plaza, told a teller that he had a bomb and demanded cash, authorities said. Dixon, who does not have a permanent address, left the bank with an undisclosed amount of money.

Deputies obtained a description of the robber and at 2:06 p.m. they saw a man matching that description attempting to cross Davis Boulevard near the East Naples Fire Station, the Sheriff’s Office reported.

"Because you’re in an area where you just had a major event like this, deputies stepped out to talk to him," said Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Kristin Adams.

Dixon was taken to the Sheriff’s Office substation on Horseshoe Drive for questioning and then arrested.

John Patrick Dixon, 52, has been charged with unarmed robbery and grand theft at 4898 Davis Blvd., Bank of America.

More than a dozen Sheriff’s Office vehicles were in the Kings Lake Square parking lot on Friday afternoon.

Mike Heaphy, a clerk at the nearby Kings Liquors, was standing outside his store about an hour after the robbery. He didn’t see or hear anything and didn’t know the bank had been robbed until he saw the squad cars.

"I bank in that bank," Heaphy said. "If they’re going to rob a bank in broad daylight, who’s to say they won’t rob me or one of these stores - not that they’d get a lot anyway. ... Not many people use cash anymore."

About an hour-and-a-half after the first robbery, the Sheriff’s Office received word that a second Bank of America, at 899 Vanderbilt Beach Road in the Pavilion shopping center, had been robbed at gunpoint.

Rita Smith of North Naples said she was one of two customers in the bank when it was robbed. She said she didn’t see a weapon, and initially thought the suspected robber was just a rude customer. The man was pushing a bag at the teller, she said.

"The teller next to me had a customer next to her saying ‘Put the money in the bag, put the money in the bag,’" Smith said.

No one in the bank seemed overly nervous or agitated except for the suspect, Smith said.

"Finally he didn’t say anymore and finally he was gone," she said.

The suspect also left the bank with an undisclosed amount of cash and ran north into some nearby woods, authorities said. Members of the Sheriff’s Office’s aviation, K-9 and road patrol units responded to the bank to search for the suspected robber who had not been located by 6 p.m.

The Sheriff’s Office described the suspect in the second robbery as a white man around 5 feet 8 inches to 5 feet 9 inches tall. Smith said he was wearing a baseball cap, had his shirt untucked and appeared to be between the ages of 25 and 40.

This is not the first time that two Collier County banks have been robbed on the same day. On an April day in 1999 the Fifth Third Bank at the Pelican Strand shopping center in North Naples and the First National Bank at 4099 Radio Road in East Naples were robbed within six hours of one another, Daily News records indicate.

Anyone with information about either robbery should call the Collier County Sheriff’s Office at (239) 793-9300.

A third bank robbery took place on Friday, but in Lee County. Authorities arrested Richard Gill, 25, of 387 West Mariana Avenue, North Fort Myers, on Friday night, on one count of robbery, a second-degree felony.

According to a Lee County Sheriff's Office report, Gill was positively identified as the man responsible for robbing a North Fort Myers SunTrust bank on North Cleveland Avenue at 2:18 p.m. After photos of the suspect were provided to local media, a tip came in from Southwest Florida CrimeStoppers.