FRIENDSWOOD, Texas – Friendswood police are looking for a gunman and getaway driver they say stole $9,000 and other belongings from a woman standing in her driveway.
“I just happened to glance over to my side and I see a man charging after me,” said the victim who did not want to be identified. “I notice (a) gun in my face, and that’s why I kind of gave it to him. I wasn’t going to fight.”
Earlier in the day, on Jan. 16, she withdrew $9,000 from a Bank of America in Friendswood and went to work. A few hours later, she drove home.
The victim can’t tell if she had been followed by juggers from the bank. The surveillance video at her workplace did not show the silver sedan that showed up at her home later that day.
“I’m going to die in my front yard,” she remembered thinking when the handgun was in her face. “How long (until) somebody ... knows that I’m dead in my front yard?”
Surveillance video from her home and neighborhood show the man in a white shirt and dark pants running away. Then the silver sedan can be seen driving off.
“All the neighbors came outside and heard the commotion,” said Ethan Pendleton, a neighbor. “She sounded like she was in a life or death situation. She sounded terrified.”
“I’m yelling and I’m screaming,” the victim said. “I even remember thinking, God, don’t leave me. Don’t leave me.”
“I wanted my neighbors to catch them,” she said. “I wanted my husband to know that that this had happened to me.”
Friendswood police are also investigating a second “bank-jugging” incident. This time, the victim was robbed at the Timber Creek Gold Club after withdrawing a “large sum of money” from the bank.
Friendswood police said suspects who engage in “bank jugging” sit in the parking lot of a bank to watch customers and then follow customers who they believe withdrew large amounts of money. Police said the suspects will wait for an opportunity to either burglarize or steal the money if left unattended or will rob the victim.