Elderly Woman Allegedly Robs New Orleans Bank: ‘Your Bank is Being Robbed’

An elderly woman with a walker approached the teller at a Chase Bank branch in New Orleans, Louisiana, apparently with one goal in mind: She was going to rob the bank. 

A little past 9:00 a.m. on Friday, Cathy Lynn Hamilton, 63, allegedly passed a note to the teller which read ‘Your bank is being robbed; put money in bag or people are going to get hurt,’ as first reported by NOLA.

The teller gave Hamilton $500. A picture from the security camera shows Hamilton grabbing both handles to her four-wheeled walker as she makes her exit. When Hamilton exited, the security guard with the bank brought the baby boomer back inside. She was taken into custody by the New Orleans Police Department and FBI.

This is not Hamilton’s first attempted robbery, for back in 2014, Hamilton was arrested after attempting to rob a Whitney National Bank branch — just a ten-minute drive from Hamilton’s most recent alleged heist. 

Hamilton handed the teller a similar card, but she left empty-handed on a bike. After pleading guilty in 2015, she was sentenced to two years in federal prison. The judge recommended Hamilton seek an evaluation for substance abuse and mental health issues. She was released in 2018.

Just last month, a 78-year-old woman in Missouri was arrested and accused of robbing a bank of thousands of dollars. Like Hamilton, she passed the teller a note, as reported by the BBC. That was allegedly Bobbie Gooch’s third heist, and she is being held on a $25,000 bond.