Getaway Car Grannie

[Bonnie]

Grandmother in getaway car
JACK KNARR,

LAWRENCE--Wachovia Bank in the Lawrence Shopping Center was robbed of just over $1,000 yesterday, in what might be the most unbelievable bank heist in years.


In the driving snow that began falling at noon, a man and a woman--strangers--approached an elderly woman living on Slack Avenue, according to Township Police Capt. Mark Boyd.

"One of the stranger things about this is they asked her for a ride to the bank," he said.

"This lady doesn’t know these two people. But she gives them a ride to the bank.

"He comes in the bank, passing a note, threatening that he has a weapon and wanting the money," Capt. Boyd said. "So he gets over $1,000, and leaves."

His girlfriend has stayed in the car with the elderly Good Samaritan. The manjumps back in.

"Then he asks the woman if she’d drop them off in Trenton near the Battle Monument," Capt. Boyd said. "She drives them down to Trenton, and drops them off there.

"And she goes home, never knowing that there was a robbery."

Boyd said the Good Samaritan woman was in her 80s. Police aren’t revealing her identity, nor that of the daughter with whom she lives. While the woman was chauffeuring the robbers around, her daughter, who saw the duo get into her mother’s car, got suspicious, and called police.

At about the same time, security personnel at the bank located at 2475 Brunswick Ave. (U.S. Highway 1) called police reporting that a man had just robbed the place, Capt. Boyd said.

The male suspect was described as white, about 40, over 6 feet tall, weighing 240 pounds, wearing a moustache and green coat, dark pants and armed only with a threatening note.

"The woman’s daughter kind of put two and two together," Capt. Cole said.

"Because she knew that her mother took these two strangers who wanted to go to Wachovia, and at the same time one dispatcher’s on the phone about that, and the other one’s taking a call from Wachovia about a bank robbery," he said.

"Fortunately, no ill harm fell her way."

FBI Special Agent and spokesman John Conway said the bureau is casting a curious eye at this male-female team.

"We’re looking to see if it matches any unsolved bank robberies in the area," he said.

"But at this point in time, it appears as though it’s a first-time for this particular team," Conway said. "We have no others that match that (method of operation) at this time.

"But the FBI is still looking outside the area to see if there are any similar bank robberies, as we always do."

He said only the glasses might have been a disguise.

"In these types of bank robberies, it’s very low-key, very subdued," he said.

"He went into the bank, approached a teller, slipped a note, and was able to make his escape relatively unnoticed."

http://www.trentonian.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=14109089&BRD=1697&PAG=461&dept_id=44551&rfi=6