Former Inmate Robs Bank In Wyoming Because She Wants To Return To Prison
A 59-year-old woman, who had recently been released from an Oregon prison, found she couldn’t cope with life on the outside. What she wanted more than anything was to return to prison, so she robbed a Wyoming bank, threw the money in the air and gave it to passersby, before sitting down to await the arrival of the police to arrest her.
Authorities announced on Friday that 59-year-old Linda Patricia Thompson told them she quite simply wanted to go back to jail.
When Thompson was initially released from prison, she had taken a train from La Grande, Oregon and then arrived in Wyoming during the week of July 18, according to a court affidavit. According to Thompson, she had been attacked and had suffered facial fractures after strangers beat her in a Cheyenne park last weekend.
On top of this, the former parolee reportedly was unable to get a room at a local homeless shelter and couldn’t face being out on the streets a moment longer.
Oregon parolee robs Wyoming bank to go back to prison, investigators say https://t.co/pITmjBEAIO
— Guardian news (@guardiannews) July 30, 2016
A report by Oregon Live quotes FBI Special Agent Tory Smith as saying the court documents stated Thompson entered a U.S. Bank branch in Cheyenne and handed the teller a note written on cardboard which read, “I have a gun. Give me all your money.”
Fearing the woman did indeed have a gun, the bank teller immediately handed over thousands of dollars to Thompson.
According to Smith, once Thompson had left the bank and was outside in the street, she threw some of the money into the air and offered more of it to people passing by on the street.
When Cheyenne police Lt. Nathan Busek arrived at the scene of the crime, he found Thompson sitting there, still holding a large sum of money.
“Lt. Busek asked Thompson what was going on, and Thompson replied, ‘I just robbed the bank, I want to go back to prison,'” Smith wrote in the court documents.
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According to federal authorities, the former parolee is being held on a federal bank robbery charge after robbing the U.S. Bank branch in Cheyenne of more than $16,000.
Thompson now faces a detention hearing on Tuesday on the bank robbery charge and does not, as yet, have an attorney, as she waits to return to prison.
Relating to her previous imprisonment, Thompson had reportedly been serving time at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville, Oregon, for a second-degree robbery conviction in Union County.
Betty Bernt, communications manager with the Oregon Department of Corrections, said on Friday that Thompson was released on parole back in June.
This woman really wanted to go back to jail via @NYPost
— Mr. W (@eventhemark) July 30, 2016
Reportedly Thompson had told investigators prior to her release that she didn’t want to leave prison, and she further told the Oregon state parole office that she would not do well on parole.
According to Oregon court records filed in Union County, Thompson had been homeless when she had previously been arrested for second-degree robbery in La Grande back in 2010.
As stated by a report in the New York Post, their reporter attempted to reach out to Thompson’s parole officer for comment on Friday, but was not successful.
[Photo via Oregon Department of Corrections]
