Police say Teen Girls Held Up Tellers, Mom Drove Getaway Car
By Jacqueline L. Urgo and Joseph A. Gambardello, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Barnegat Township, N.J. -- Money troubles were nothing new to the Jones family of Midship Lane.
But last week, with foreclosure on their home appearing imminent, Kathleen Wortman Jones, 34, and her 14-year-old twin daughters flew into action and even deeper trouble, police said Tuesday.
With their mother acting as getaway driver, the teens robbed a bank at gunpoint, fleeing with $ 3,050, authorities said.
Jones, her husband, Kevin L. Jones, 37, and the girls, Chelsea and Alicia, still had a roof over their heads Tuesday _ only it was as guests of the Ocean County criminal justice system.
And in Barnegat, a Pinelands (N.J.) township that has seen its population nearly double in 20 years, residents and officials could talk about little else.
How, they wondered, could two wispy girls not known to cause trouble be pulling an armed bank heist with mom as getaway driver?
“Fourteen-year-old girls steal lipstick, not rob banks,” said Police Detective Michael Duffy, who led the investigation. “The fact that such young girls _ children, really _ were involved in such a serious crime does set you back a little.”
Duffy said the girls -- a “real Thelma and Louise team” -- arrived at the Sun Bank branch on Route 9 just before noon on Oct. 29. With one wearing a black ski mask and the other a nylon stocking over her head, the pair walked quickly past a branch manager seated near the front door.
“Apparently she saw the get-up on the girls and thought it was some sort of a Halloween prank,” Duffy said. “The girls went right up to a teller and one of them, in what sounded almost like a child’s voice, said, ‘Give us your money.’ ”
When the teller asked whether the caper was a joke, one of the girls allegedly brandished what later turned out to be a toy gun. Using a series of expletives, she announced that the hold-up was the real thing and told the teller to put cash into a black trash bag.
After the teller put $3,050 in the bag, the girls ran to a road behind the bank, where, police said, their mother was waiting in a car.
Besides a bank video, police would not say what led them to the Joneses’ house on Midship Lane, but shortly after 5 p.m. EST Friday, a SWAT team and an FBI agent arrived and arrested the two adults, the twins, and a 16-year-old stepdaughter. Police also recovered $ 2,700.
Kathleen Jones and the twins were charged with armed bank robbery and possession of a weapon. Kevin Jones, who police said did not know of the stickup until afterward, was charged with receiving stolen property and hindering apprehension.
The parents did not make $ 75,000 bail each and were sent to the Ocean County Jail, and the twins were sent to the Ocean County Juvenile Shelter. The 16-year-old, who was charged with conspiracy, was released to her grandmother.
“I can’t imagine what the conversation must have been like between the mother and the girls in planning it,” said Carrie Dempsey, 29, a next-door neighbor. “Did she say, ‘OK, you wear the mask. I’ll drive the getaway car?’ I just can’t imagine her doing that.”
Dempsey said Jones had worked with her at a local veterinary office for less than a week before leaving because of illness.
“Whenever I’d see her outside, we would say ‘hi’ to each other back and forth and she would ask how my baby is doing, stuff like that. You’d see the kids outside playing. Everything seemed relatively normal,” Dempsey said.
But things apparently were not so normal inside the Jones home.
Family friends said the Joneses were days away from losing their home to foreclosure.
Through the front door of the small ranch-style home, adults inside said they did not wish to talk about the family’s problems.
Public records show that Kevin Jones had filed for Chapter 7 federal bankruptcy protection in 1997 and that Kathleen Jones filed for Chapter 13 protection on July 29.
On July 11, Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Inc., had filed a foreclosure suit in Ocean County Superior Court seeking repayment of $ 94,223. Attorneys for the firm did not return a call seeking comment.
Neighbors said the Joneses’ house had been completely renovated when the family moved in more than two years ago.
But in a modest neighborhood of neatly kept homes, the house now shows signs of decline. The yard, which had very little grass, was littered with bicycles and toys. Sheets served as curtains. Trash cans overflowed at curbside.
A woman arriving at the home Tuesday afternoon said she was there to take another family member to the doctor. “I don’t agree that it was the right way to handle their situation, but clearly they need help and I’m trying to help them out as best I can,” she said.
“For me, it’s the Christian thing to do.”