She carried a blue Kuhn’s shopping bag, wore her hair in a bun and claimed to have a bomb when she walked into a bank in Bellevue last month and robbed it.
The fact she was a woman that witnesses described as 65 to 70 years old makes the situation unusual, but it doesn’t mean she has been any easier to find. The woman was wearing a beige hoodie, dark sunglasses and a Steelers ball cap when she made off with an unspecified amount of money.
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FBI agents said they are following some “key leads” into the June 7 heist at the Citizens Bank on Lincoln Avenue and reviewing surveillance video but have been unable to identify the woman.
“We’re still making it a priority,” said FBI spokeswoman Kelly Kochamba. “The surveillance footage has been helpful.”
None of the three employees or three customers inside the bank was injured.
Experts said it is rare for a woman in her 60s or 70s to commit such a crime.
“It’s very unusual when a woman robs a bank, let alone an older one,” said Larry Likar, a former FBI agent who chairs the Department of Justice and Law and Security at La Roche College in McCandless.
Of the 6,002 people identified in 5,086 robberies, burglaries and larcenies of financial institutions in the United States in 2011, just 429 of them — or 7 percent — were women, FBI data show.
In Pennsylvania, 174 people older than 65 were arrested in 2010 and 2011 for robberies, burglaries and larcenies, according to state police. That’s about 1 percent of the 17,252 people arrested for those crimes.
Likar said younger suspects generally are caught more easily because they brag about their crimes or have friends who turn them in for rewards, or do so once news of the crime or surveillance footage is aired on television. Older people generally have a smaller circle of acquaintances, and most people wouldn’t suspect an older woman of such a crime, Likar said.
“People just do not expect that behavior,” he said.
Lawson Bernstein, a forensic psychiatrist in Aspinwall, said there could be many reasons why an older woman would rob a bank, such as being desperate for money, having dementia or another psychiatric disorder, or a substance-abuse problem.
“The last possibility, although it’s highly unlikely, is that she’s just somebody who is bored and lonely and she’s using this as a way to garner attention,” he said.
