Three arrested in bank heist, including teller

Published 9:00 pm Friday, March 2, 2007

ACWORTH, Ga. – Two teenage women suspected of donning sunglasses as they robbed a supermarket bank branch were arrested along with a bank teller following a brief car chase Thursday, authorities said.

The women, both 19, and the bank teller, were stopped by police in Douglas County about 20 miles from where robbery occurred Tuesday afternoon, said sheriff’s Maj. M.O. Harper.

Ashley Miller and Heather Johnson, and bank teller Benny Herman Allen, 22, were charged with felony theft and marijuana possession, said Cobb County Police spokeswoman Cassie Reece. Another man, Michael Chastang, 27, also was arrested in the case and charged felony theft and drug trafficking.

“It was a conspiracy to take money from the bank,” Reece said. “They were in on it.”

Surveillance video shows the robbers laughing and smiling as they handed a teller a note. Police initially thought the girls were as young as 16.

Police declined to release the contents of the robbers’ note and the amount of money stolen.

The bank is in a strip mall in an upscale west Cobb residential neighborhood, about 28 miles north of Atlanta.