One of two men found shot to death in a Cottontown, Tenn., home Wednesday is believed to be the suspect in a Bowling Green bank robbery.

Law enforcement had been searching the Cottontown area for a man who fled on foot from a van that officers said was used as the getaway vehicle in the robbery Tuesday morning of Citizens First Bank on Campbell Lane in Bowling Green.

A short time after the robbery, a Franklin Police Department officer saw a van matching the description and attempted to stop it. The driver of the van continued on but was stopped a short time later near Cottontown after police disabled the vehicle with spike strips. A man who was a passenger of the van fled on foot, but the driver, 53-year-old Colleen Sue Watkins, of Florala, Ala., was taken into custody. She was charged with first-degree robbery and was booked into the Sumner County Jail in Tennessee.

The robber was thought to still be in the area.

Sumner County Sheriff Sonny Weatherford said a neighbor called police about 5 p.m. Wednesday when she went to a home and found the homeowner, a truck driver, dead. Investigators later discovered the second body, Weatherford said Thursday in an interview with the Daily News.

Police suspected it might be the Bowling Green bank robber because the house is about a half-mile from where the man jumped from the vehicle and because of the physical likeness to suspect descriptions and photos. Weatherford said Bowling Green Police Department officers came to the scene on Hwy. 25 and confirmed that the man was the bank robber.

BGPD spokesman Officer Ronnie Ward confirmed that the Sumner County Sheriff’s Office contacted BGPD about the bank robber after the two bodies were found. Ward said BGPD has no official statement on the matter.

Weatherford said a door window had been broken out to get inside the home. It is believed that a gun battle ensued when the homeowner got home, he said.

“A neighbor reported hearing something like firecrackers at about 1 p.m.,” Weatherford said.

It’s not known yet if the weapons used in the shootout all belonged to the homeowner or if the intruder brought his own, the sheriff said.

Weatherford said officers are notifying next of kin before the homeowner’s name is released and he hopes to quickly be able to positively identify the other man.

As for the possibility of having Watkins identify the man, Weatherford doesn’t know if that is possible.

“She has already been extradited to Kentucky,” he said.

Watkins is lodged in Warren County Regional Jail on $50,000 cash bond.

— Follow city editor Robyn L. Minor on Twitter at @bowserminor or visit bgdailynews.com.