A suspected robber’s brand of cigarettes may help investigators connect him to three unsolved store stickups in Butler and Lawrence counties.

When state police on Wednesday arrested Matthew J. Peltz, 29, on charges he stole a vehicle in Jefferson Township, he was carrying two packs of L & M Red Label cigarettes.

That’s the same brand that a bandit specifically demanded — along with money — during armed holdups between Nov. 21 and Dec. 5 at stores in Butler and Muddy Creek townships and in Scott Township, Lawrence County.

Trooper Adam Peth said Peltz already is suspected of robbing a Buffalo Township convenience store last week only an hour after he allegedly tried to rob and abduct a woman outside a store in Jefferson Township.

Authorities also are looking at him for a series of earlier robberies.

Those holdups occurred Nov. 21 at the Get Go gas station on Route 8 in Butler Township and Dec. 5 at both Book’s Market on Route 19 in Scott Township, Lawrence County, and the Last Minute Mart on Route 19 in Muddy Creek Township.

The three crimes shared common characteristics, leading police to suspect the same man did them.

One of those is that the bandit during each stickup ordered the clerks to give him money and L & M Red Label cigarettes, the same brand police learned that Peltz smokes following his arrest.

District Judge Sue Haggerty on Wednesday arraigned Peltz on a charge of felony theft. He is in the Butler County Prison on $50,000 bail.