Young bank robbery suspect turns herself in

Published 10:31 pm Wednesday, January 14, 2009

ARLINGTON — Laura Potter told her boyfriend she ran out of options.

Desperate, homeless, battling a severe drug addiction and coping with her mother’s recent suicide, the 20-year-old on Tuesday walked into the Arlington KeyBank branch about 1:30 p.m., passed a teller a note and demanded money, according to a police affidavit filed in Everett District Court on Wednesday.

“This was an act of desperation in addition to a cry for help,” Arlington police Sgt. Jonathan Ventura said.

Bank surveillance video captured the young robber in action. She wore a light-colored hooded sweatshirt, a brown jacket and a big smile.

“This is a robbery do what I say,” the note read.

The note warned that if she wasn’t back outside in 30 seconds, there was a man waiting. Prosecutors in court Wednesday said the threat of violence was clear.

The robber got $200, and was working alone, according to police.

Arlington police recognized Potter from the photographs. Eight hours after the holdup, she was in handcuffs. Police, her boyfriend and his parents convinced Potter to surrender. She was wearing clothing that appeared to match that of the woman in surveillance photographs.

“She felt so alone and didn’t know where to turn, and turned to all the wrong places,” said Potter’s boyfriend, Brandon Wertz, 20.

Wertz said he’s been dating Potter for more than two years but hadn’t seen her much since enlisting in the U.S. Marine Corps a year ago. He’s stationed in California and is scheduled to deploy soon to the Middle East.

“Just because we sometimes make some very poor choices in life doesn’t make us bad people,” Wertz said.

When he first met Potter, he was attracted to the promise of success she seemed to exude, he said. After a rocky start in high school, she’d managed to do well, graduated and was holding down a job as a teller at an Everett branch of Frontier Bank, he said.

The intimate knowledge of how banks work may have boosted Potter’s confidence to attempt a holdup, Wertz said.

Potter only had remorse by the time he spoke to her on the phone Tuesday.

“She had apologized to me, said she was sorry for everything,” Wertz said.

In 2003, when Potter was 15, she pleaded guilty to third-degree theft and trespassing. Court documents from the time show she was addicted to methamphetamine and dependent on marijuana.

She told a probation officer she had been drinking and using drugs since she was 12.

After spending time in treatment, Wertz said, Potter cleaned herself up.

She attended Arlington schools, graduating from Arlington High School when she was 18.

One of her former principals described her as an independent thinker.

“She was a very intelligent young lady,” said Maurene Stanton, principal at Weston High School and the Arlington Freshmen Academy.

“I’m just so brokenhearted. It’s just so sad,” Stanton said Wednesday.

Wertz believes Potter started making bad choices again during the past year. Her mother’s boyfriend, Randy McMillan, said Potter also has serious health problems not related to addiction.

On Dec. 30, Potter’s 49-year-old mother was found dead in her car near Marblemount in Skagit County. Skagit County sheriff’s detectives said the death isn’t suspicious, but the case remains under investigation.

During Potter’s court appearance Wednesday, the judge was told that Potter’s mother had committed suicide.

“You can only imagine what it would feel like losing your mother right after Christmas and having your significant other leaving for Iraq in a month,” the defendant’s boyfriend, Wertz, said.

Potter and her mother were close, said Missy Ruiz, Wertz’s stepmother. Ruiz drove Potter to an Everett police station Tuesday night to give herself up.

“Her mom was her best friend,” she said. Potter is estranged from her father.

Potter has been staying with Ruiz and her husband in Everett the past few days. They had been trying to get her into a drug treatment program, without success, Ruiz said.

When detectives called Tuesday looking for Potter, Ruiz found the young woman asleep in the GMC Yukon that witnesses said they saw at the bank robbery. The vehicle is registered to Potter.

Potter has been cooperative with police, Ventura said.

For a woman to rob a bank on her own is highly unusual, said Robert McCrie, a professor of security management at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. He’s been studying bank robberies for more than 30 years.

Nationwide, women account for only a handful of bank heists each year, he said. In Washington last year, it was just 2 percent, according to the FBI.

“Woman sometimes participate in bank crimes but usually they are there in the presence of one or more males,” McCrie said.

In the past, bank tellers worked behind security bars. Banks now try to be welcoming places to entice business, he said. That can backfire.

“Not only do they invite new customers but they invite bank robbers as well,” McCrie said.

Potter on Wednesday was booked into the Snohomish County Jail for investigation of first-degree robbery and an outstanding theft warrant.

A judge ordered her held in lieu of $50,000 bail.

McMillan, who was dating Potter’s mother, said the mother’s suicide followed by the daughter’s arrest have been tough to comprehend.

“It’s such a tragic end,” he said.

Herald writer Eric Stevick contributed to this report.

Reporter Jackson Holtz: 425-339-3437 or jholtz@heraldnet.com.