Westminster : 2 Arrested in Holdup at Shopping Mall S

A man and woman were arrested on suspicion of robbing a Westminster Mall savings and loan Thursday afternoon, police said.

Officers were able to quickly stop the suspects less than a mile from Home Federal Savings, police said, because an alert employee punched a silent alarm after she recognized the woman as the same one who allegedly robbed the bank two months ago.

Police spokesman Larry Woessner said that Susan Marie Ohnstad, 28, of Huntington Beach and Duke Kimberly Bolter, 31, of Santa Ana were to be booked into Orange County Jail.

Woessner gave this account:

A woman entered the branch at 2:53 p.m. and approached a teller. She pretended to have a weapon and quietly demanded that the teller give her money.

Another teller in the bank recognized the woman as “the same one who robbed the Huntington Beach branch of Home Federal Savings about two months ago, right before it moved into the Westminster Mall. She immediately activated the alarm and advised the bank manager, who called us.”

As the woman fled into a waiting car with a man at the wheel, police broadcast a description of the vehicle, its license plate number and the suspects. An officer spotted a car matching the description at Golden West Street and Bolsa Avenue and pursued it onto the southbound San Diego Freeway.

Two freeway exits later, the car veered onto the shoulder of the Magnolia Avenue off-ramp, and the two suspects began running. Ohnstad was stopped as she tried to climb a fence running. Bolter was arrested in the garage of a vacant residence.

Bolter has served two prison sentences for narcotics-related charges, a state Corrections Department spokeswoman said Thursday. She said Bolter was also convicted of assault and battery on school property in Orange County, charges for which he served a nearly three-year prison sentence. Bolter was paroled in Santa Ana in February, 1983, the spokeswoman said.

The FBI is investigating Thursday’s holdup, as well as another one Tuesday at a Lloyd’s Bank in Westminster, Lt. Bob Burnett said.