Bank Robbers Terrorize Teller’s Family Before Stealing $80,000

Two gunmen in wigs held a La Habra bank teller and her family hostage overnight, then led her on Monday morning to the Buena Park branch where she worked and threatened, before escaping with $80,000 cash, to explode a device they had strapped to her waist.

Authorities said the device, attached to the teller’s waist with duct tape beneath her T-shirt, proved not to contain explosives.

The kidnaped bank teller, Norma Yolanda Sanchez, 47, and her family were physically unharmed but quite distraught after the 14-hour ordeal, a detective said. The affair began at the family’s La Habra apartment and ended at the Beach Boulevard branch of the Security Pacific National Bank about 9 a.m. None of the dozen or so employees inside the closed bank were injured, police said.

“She’s obviously an employee of the bank, but why they picked her as opposed to some other employee I have no idea at this point,” Buena Park Police Detective David Skaugstad said.

Bucky Cox, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Orange County office, said investigators had no reason to believe the bandits knew the Sanchez family.

“We have examined M.O.s (modus operandi) and descriptions of robberies in the Western states for the past few years and there are some similar types . . . that have occurred, and we will be doing some further checking to see if they are similar.

“We have not eliminated anybody as suspects.”

Police said the intruders confronted Sanchez’s husband, Andrew, as he was leaving their apartment in the 800 block of North Walnut Street about 7 p.m. Sunday.

The gunmen held the Sanchezes, their 6-year-old daughter and Norma Sanchez’s son, Larry Kelly, 25, hostage inside the apartment until daybreak. La Habra police said neighbors reported seeing or hearing nothing unusual at the Sanchez apartment.

Monday morning, the intruders forced the bank teller into the family’s 1988 Mitsubishi camper truck and ordered Kelly to drive his mother and the two bandits to the Security Pacific National Bank office in the 6200 block of Beach Boulevard. Andrew Sanchez was left behind but was “under the threat that if he did anything (such as summon police) something would happen to his wife,” Buena Park police spokesman Mike Borregard said.

At this point, investigators said, one of the robbers, wearing a gray wig and short gray mustache, put Kelly into the back of the camper, then waited outside the bank. That robber was described by the FBI spokesman as white, between 30 and 35 years old, 5 feet 9, of medium build and wearing a pinstripe suit and sunglasses.

The second robber--who wore a black and gray jogging suit, a black wig, fake goatee and mustache--accompanied Norma Sanchez inside her office, which opens to the public at 9 a.m. Inside were perhaps a dozen other employees preparing to open the bank, investigators said.

The robber, armed with a .45-caliber, semiautomatic pistol, told the workers he would set off the “bomb” taped to Sanchez’s torso if he wasn’t given the cash he demanded.

Cox said the assistant branch manager assisted the gunman in collecting $80,000 cash. According to Borregard, the money was gathered from all over the bank--from the ready-teller machine, the vault and teller drawers.

The robber left Sanchez at the bank and told the employees the bomb around her waist would be detonated if the police were called. He and his partner traveled down an alley about half a block from the bank, then sped off in another vehicle. Cox said Kelly was unable to see the second car from his position in the back of the camper. Borregard said he believed Kelly was “told to lay on the seat or the floor or something.”

Kelly was told not to summon authorities for two hours or the bomb strapped to his mother would be detonated, Borregard said.

Fearing for the safety of Sanchez and themselves, the bank workers did not use telephones to summon help. Instead, police said, they scribbled large signs with paper and felt pens, then placed them on the glass doors of the bank.

Customer Called Police

The signs read: “Due to an emergency, the bank will be closed all day.” This drew the suspicion of several customers who gathered a few minutes early outside the bank, police said, because employees were clearly visible inside the bank. One of the customers called police at 8:56 a.m., Borregard said.

Arriving officers quickly established that the bank had been robbed, and the Orange County Sheriff’s Department’s hazardous devices squad was called in to examine the bomb. They determined that it was not an explosive device, police said.

Neither police nor the FBI would describe the device.

“They obviously had some planning go into this,” Borregard said. “It wasn’t your ordinary bank robbery. Mrs. Sanchez was visibly shaken; the employees were very nervous, very upset.”

The bank branch was closed for the day.

Cox said that because an employee’s entire family was endangered in the bank robbery and hostage incident, Security Pacific National Bank is offering a $25,000 reward for anyone with information leading to the arrest and conviction of the kidnaping and robbery suspects.

Anyone with information can call the FBI in Los Angeles at (213) 477-6565; Buena Park police at (714) 521-9352, or the Bank Robber Hot Line at (800) 442-2244.