A woman who reportedly admitted to robbing both a Wilmette and Skokie bank in separate incidents last month appeared briefly in U.S. federal court Thursday, where U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheila Finnegan set a Nov. 19 date for a continued detention hearing.
Kirbey Ingold, 23, who has no current permanent address, is charged with one felony count of bank robbery in connection with the Wilmette heist, which took place shortly before noon Oct. 14 at the BMO Harris Bank, 1701 Sheridan Road in Wilmette.
According to agents with the Chicago FBI office, which has worked with Wilmette and Skokie investigators on both robbery cases, Ingold was identified with the help of an informant who recognized her from surveillance pictures shot at the scene of the Skokie robbery and replayed on a television newscast. That took place shortly before 2:15 p.m. Oct. 7 at PNC Bank, 5033 W. Dempster St.
Ingold has been in federal custody since Nov. 5, when Chicago police arrested her on two non-related outstanding traffic warrants. She was charged Nov. 6, after a teller involved in the Wilmette robbery identified Ingold in a photographic line-up.
At her Nov. 1 hearing, defense attorney James McGurk requested the continuance so that he could prepare a request to allow her to be freed on bond, possibly through electronic monitoring.
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When FBI agents announced the charge against Ingold, they stated that she told investigators she had robbed the Wilmette bank. In that incident, the robber got away with $1,780. They said she also acknowledged robbing the PNC Bank in Skokie, but did not say why she had not been charged in connection with the that incident, in which $1,426 was taken.
Agents said that a Harris Bank teller told them the Wilmette robbery began around 11:48 a.m., after a teller at the bank drive-through stepped over to cover colleague’s window during their lunch break.
At that time she saw a short black woman, who the teller described as having a chunky build, standing at the window. The teller said the woman wore a red hooded pullover sweatshirt, and a darker colored hood pulled over her head.
The teller said the woman first told her she wanted to open an account. The teller noticed she was carrying a plastic bag, then saw a piece of white paper, with a faint handwritten note on it, lying on the counter.
When the teller tried to read the note, but couldn’t make it out, the robber said, “Just give me the money.”
When the bank employee tried to tell her that this was not their regular window and they didn’t have keys to the drawer, the woman responded, “Give me the money. I’m armed,” then put a hand in the front pocket of her red sweatshirt.
According to the complaint, the employee immediately went to their regular station, took cash from their own drawer and put it in the robber’s plastic bag. The woman left and was last seen running north on Sheridan.
Employees at the Skokie PNC branch described a similar series of events in the Oct. 7 robbery, according to the complaint.
In that case, a woman walked up to the teller, and handed over a deposit slip and a handwritten note which stated, “This is a robbery. No sudden movements. Keep your hands were (sic) I can see them. I have a gun. I will shoot. NO DYE PACKS.”
The PNC teller, who described the robber as a chubby black woman dressed in a grey jacket with multiple hoods, took money from the station’s drawer and handed it to the woman.
When the teller paused slightly during the process, the robber reportedly shook her head and made a motion with her right hand, which was the pocket of her sweatshirt. The action made the teller think she was trying to indicate that she had a gun in her pocket.
Still frames from the PNC bank’s CCTV surveillance showed the robber wearing a sweatshirt with the words “I’m That Guy” across the front, and also wearing a light-colored baseball cap worn under a sweatshirt hood.
Photos from both robberies showed the woman with a smile on her face.
On Oct. 16, Skokie police got a tip about the robber’s identity. The informant met with detectives and identified Ingold, after having seen TV reports of the robbery. The informant said Ingold had a young daughter, was staying at a Chicago hotel and planned to leave the Chicago area, due, the complaint stated, “to unspecified things she had recently done.”
On Oct. 22, the Harris Bank teller identified Ingold through the photo line-up. The next day, FBI agents learned that Evanston detectives who were checking into a dispute between Ingold’s sister and one of Ingold’s friends, over the placement of Ingold’s daughter, had spoken with the woman, asking her to come in to resolve the dispute.
She refused to come in. according to the complaint. When the Evanston detective asked her sister why, the sister said Ingold had “unresolved issues” and then identified them as “bank issues.”