78-year-old Bonnie Gooch arrested for robbing a bank — again
She’s a real-life Bonnie — minus the Clyde, plus a few years.
A 78-year-old Missouri woman with a history of bank heists and the first name Bonnie was arrested Wednesday for trying to rob a bank in Pleasant Hill.
Bonnie Gooch was cuffed and charged with stealing or attempted stealing from a financial institution for the alleged theft at Goppert Financial Bank Wednesday afternoon, Pleasant Hill police said.
Officers spotted a car matching the suspect vehicle description provided by staff driving a few hundred yards from the bank following the attempted heist and pulled it over.
They found Gooch behind the wheel and evidence inside the car that linked her to the bank robbery, police said.
“Obviously it was a tense situation,” Pleasant Hill Police Chief Thomas Wright told Kansas City’s FOX 4 News. “But when the hands of an elderly woman come out of the car and that is who is driving the suspect vehicle, it’s a little shocking.”
Gooch was taken into custody without incident.
The septuagenarian has been accused of bank robberies in the past, according to the location station.
In 2020, Gooch, then 75, was arrested in Lee’s Summit for a different bank theft and was later convicted. At the time, her son said his mother “was off her rocker” and had left the house “angry, saying she was going to rob a bank,” according to court document cited by Fox 4.
Gooch’s sentence for that crime was suspended, and she was released on supervised probation which expired in November 2021, the outlet reported.
In that robbery and Wednesday’s, Gooch handed a note to bank tellers, police said.
She also was convicted of bank robbery in her younger years, according to the 2020 criminal complaint.
In 1977, Gooch was found guilty of bank robbery in California. She would have been around 32 at the time of that crime.
Gooch was charged by Cass County prosecutors Thursday who set bail at $25,000 cash bond, according to cops.
Wright told Fox 4 his team is evaluating whether the 78-year-old needs services as her case moves through the criminal justice system.
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