PLOVER, Wis. - A couple were thwarted in their effort to leave this small central Wisconsin town when they were arrested for robbing a gas station with a samurai sword.

Renee Ferreri, 22, told police that she and Brian A. Schmid, 24, "were tired of their lives, and they just 'gave up,'" according to a criminal complaint.

The couple needed money to leave town, so they stole a 2000 Mercury Sable on Aug. 8 from the Jeepers Gin Mill and drove to their home to pick up the sword and two stocking caps, police said.

Then Ferreri drove Schmid to a gas station, where a clerk said he threatened her with a "Japanese-style sword" and forced her to give him several hundred dollars from the station's registers.

Police arrested the couple after a Plover officer remembered seeing several samurai swords in their apartment when he responded to a domestic disturbance call in May.

Schmid is being held in the Portage County Jail on $75,000 bond after an initial court appearance this week. Ferreri is being held there on $50,000 bond.

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