74-year-old Ann Mayers on the surveillance images in the bank office. — © FAIRFIELD TOWNSHIP POLICE
A 74-year-old Ohio woman robbed a bank. According to her family, the woman herself was the victim of an online scammer, who they paid with the loot – barely 500 dollars.
Ann Mayers of Hamilton, Ohio, had no criminal history, yet on April 19 she walked into an AurGroup Credit Union office in Fairfield Township, showed her gun and demanded money. Masked with a face mask, she left again, but the loot was disappointing: she had barely managed to steal 500 dollars.
The police were quickly able to track down the retired woman at her home a few kilometers away. The fact that the same car as the one used during the robbery was in front of her door, with the firearm still in the car, removed all doubt, even though Mayers had the foresight to turn off the license plate and remove a bumper sticker. Bodycam footage from the local police shows that she immediately confessed upon arrest, writes the American news site Inside Edition. “I know why you are here, I did it,” she says. The police then ask her to be more specific, to which Mayers answers: “The robbery.”
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Fraud victim
Even more striking than the robber’s profile was her motive: the police discovered that Mayers herself may have fallen victim to online scams. Her family informed investigators that she had sent money to an “unidentified person” before the robbery. “Some may therefore see her as a victim, but unfortunately Ann has chosen to solve her problem by robbing several people at gunpoint,” police sergeant Brandon McCroskey said in the American newspaper. USAToday.
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It is not known exactly how she fell victim to an internet fraudster, but according to American sources she has already borrowed thousands of dollars from a friend and her sister to pay the scammer(s). The police have not yet found any evidence for the so-called fraud.
According to police, Mayers shared her plan with her family members prior to the robbery, but they did not take her intention seriously. The woman is currently being held in the Butler County Jail in Ohio. She says she cannot afford a lawyer and hopes to be assigned a pro bono lawyer.
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