Since December 2013, at least 14 financial institutions in Warren and Butler counties and the Dayton area have been robbed. One Middletown woman was robbed at gunpoint outside a bank then forced to give the thief a getaway ride.
Better bank security and investigative techniques, as well as photos that go viral thanks to social media, makes solving cases more frequent, police said.
But it hasn’t completely stopped bank robbers.
“I guess that is still where the money is,” said Fairfield Police Chief Mike Dickey. “Or a least that is what people think.”
Faifield detectives continue to search for a man who passed a note to a teller at Chase Bank on Pleasant Avenue the afternoon of Feb. 7 and demanded cash.
“We have a pretty good picture. Someone will know who he is,” Dickey said. He noted it’s the first bank robbery the city has had in a couple years.
The city’s proximity to the interstate makes banks along Interstate 275 a good target for robbers who want a quick exit. Banks near interstates also attract out-of-town thieves looking to rob a location where they are not recognized, according to Fairfield police.
Middletown, located on Interstate 75, has had years riddled with bank robberies, but recently those numbers have dropped.
Lt. Scott Reeve and Detective David Swartzel are not sure of the reason for the drop, but they do attribute the most recent incidents to drug addiction, specifically heroin.
Detectives have a suspect in the most recent robbery, which happened Dec. 2 at the Fifth Third Bank in Kroger on Towne Boulevard. The suspect is in jail for a store robbery and will likely be charged with the bank heist soon, police said.
While the number of traditional bank robberies has declined, crimes involving ATMs and online scams have soared.
A 56-year-old woman was robbed last month at an ATM outside US Bank on Roosevelt Boulevard when a gun-wielding man took her money and forced her to drive him to Jackson Lane, where he jumped out of the car.
Swartzel and Detective Rich Bush are continuing to look for the suspect, who is considered armed and dangerous.
Over the years, Swartzel has arrested a number of robbers, including one who was caught on a city bus holding a bag of cash, a robber spotted on the run by the city fire chief and eventually chased down, and most recently the “note jobs.”
“Most of these guys today are passing notes,” Swartzel said, a trend that is a few years old. Notes draw less attention to the robber and they do not have to speak, which might disclose some clue to their identity, police say.
Swartzel also investigated one of the most unusual serial robbers in 2008. Dubbed the “granny robber,” Barbara Joly, then 68 and a former bank teller, robbed four banks in Middletown, Mason, Lebanon and Franklin.
Joly’s age and gender made her unusual as a bank robber, according to police. Investigators said Joly, who is serving a nine-year prison sentence, was stealing the cash to pay her son’s gambling debts.
Last week a Cincinnati man who was a laid off bank executive was arrested for robbing a Key Bank in Anderson Twp.
Officials say suspects like the “granny robber” and the former bank executive are not the norm.
“I believe almost every one of them now is spurred by heroin,” Swartzel said.
In Hamilton, six banks have been robbed since 2009, according to Sgt. Michael Waldeck. All have been solved.
Because Hamilton is not located on a major interstate, Waldeck said most of the robbers are “local people.” Most notable is a man who robbed a local branch with a grenade. He was found with the explosive, which was not operable.
Arrests have been made in the region of suspects in more than one robbery, including a man arrested last month for a bank robbery in Beavercreek and a pair of robberies at Wright-Patt Credit Unions in Dayton and Harrison Twp.
Michael Hay, of Columbus, was arrested last week outside of Grove City. He is a suspect in nine robberies throughout the state, including the Dayton area, Cincinnati and Warren County.
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