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Bonnie Gooch, 78, was charged with robbing a Missouri bank on Thursday.
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Prosecutors charged Gooch with demanding “13,000 small bills” from one of the bank clerks.
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Prosecutors say she wrote a note to the cashier that read, “Thank you, sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Prosecutors have charged a 78-year-old woman with robbing a Missouri bank — and they say she gave the bank clerk a note, halfway through the robbery, apologizing for scaring them.
Prosecutors allege that Bonnie Gooch, who already has two bank robbery convictions, attempted to escape with cash from the Goppert Financial Bank in Pleasant Hill, according to court documents viewed by The Kansas City Star.
Gooch approached the bank’s counter on April 5 and shoved the cashier a note that read in part, “I need 13,000 small bills,” the court documents said.
“Thank you, sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” the note read, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors also allege that Gooch banged on the counter to rush the cashier, telling them not to count the money and to “just give it to her.”
Gooch then escaped in a Buick SUV with a handicap registration number, prosecutors said, according to the outlet. When police stopped her in a parking lot, they found the money on the floor and noted that the vehicle smelled strongly of alcohol, prosecutors said, according to The Kansas City Star.
Pleasant Hill police chief Tommy Wright told The Kansas City Star the case was “unusual” and “sad.”
“When officers first approached her, they were a little confused,” he said.
“It’s a little old lady stepping out,” he added. “We weren’t sure at first if we had the right person.”
Wright said police are now “working with agencies to figure out what the next steps are.”
Prosecutors charged Gooch with one count of stealing from a financial institution, the Pleasant Hill Missouri Police Department said in a Facebook post on April 7. She is being held in Cass County Jail on $25,000 bail, police added.
Gooch has two previous bank robbery convictions — one in California in 1977 and one in the Kansas City suburb of Lee’s Summit in 2020, according to the Associated Press.
According to The Kansas City Star, Gooch will be arraigned on May 25.
Representatives from the Pleasant Hill Missouri Police Department and Missouri Courts did not immediately respond to Insider’s requests for comment, which were sent outside of regular business hours.
Editor’s Note: The photo in this story has been updated to a more relevant image.
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