I collected this story while on a business trip to Vancouver in 1998. None of the people involved in this story come out of it with much credit.

She robbed banks to pay the rent

LINDSAY KINES

VANCOUVER SUN 12 February 1998

One day she was behind on her rent - the next, she was behind bars.

In between, three Vancouver banks were held up in one of the most bizarre crime stories to hit the Lower Mainland in years.

The way police tell it, a 20-year-old woman, who sublets an apartment at 1886 West Broadway, bounced her rent cheque this month.

Fearing the tenant was planning to skip town, the 30-year-old landlady and her 35-year-old husband dropped by the apartment at 8 a.m. Tuesday to collect the rent.

The tenant said she had money in the bank, so the landlady, a hairdresser, offered her a ride.

Police say the tenant and her boyfriend, and the hairdresser and her husband, all piled into a Porsche and drove to the Toronto Dominion Bank at 499 Granville, arriving at 9:30 a.m.

While the older couple waited outside in the car, the young woman and her boyfriend entered the bank. He took a seat in the waiting area, while the woman apparently filled out a withdrawal slip.

In reality, police say, she was writing a hold-up note.

Tenant allegedly passed holdup note to tellers at three different banks in order to meet her rent.

A few minutes later, she allegedly slipped the note to a teller, who promptly gave the woman an undisclosed amount of money. The woman and her boyfriend then got back in the Porsche and the foursome drove away.

Police say the young woman then gave some of the money to her boyfriend, who was on his way to Vancouver Island. The hairdresser and her husband dropped the boyfriend downtown so he could catch a bus to the ferry, then drove back to the apartment.

Once there, the woman handed over a sum of money. It was, however, not enough to cover the rent.

She then offered to visit a second bank, where she claimed to have more money in a safe deposit box.

So the trio drove to the Royal Bank at 1497 West Broadway. It was now just before 10 a.m., and the bank was not yet open.

The two women went for coffee, while the husband waited in the car.

Once the bank opened, the young woman insisted that she go in alone. Police say she again passed the stick-up note to a teller.

This time, however, the teller was a trainee without any cash in her till. The alleged thief bolted, and rejoined the husband and wife in the Porsche.

Police say she explained to the couple that she had forgotten her key to the safe deposit box. They returned to the apartment and, while the couple waited out back, the young woman went upstairs, changed clothes and went out the front door.

She walked across the street and into the Bank of Nova Scotia, 1801 West Broadway. Again, she allegedly passed the note to a teller, and again she received an undisclosed sum of money.

Then, she returned to her apartment and paid the rent in full.

Unfortunately, she was easier to follow this time - especially since she was only going across the Street.

By the time the rent money changed hands, the place was crawling with police. Everyone was taken into custody and police searched the apartment.

It was about this time that the boyfriend called from the ferry terminal. A police officer answered the phone and when the boyfriend asked who was speaking, the police officer said that he was a boyfriend.

The real boyfriend hung up, raced back to Vancouver and called 911 to report a strange man in the apartment.

Police then took the boyfriend into custody too. Later, after police had interviewed everyone, they released the hairdresser and her husband, as well as the boyfriend - convinced none of them knew what the young woman was doing.

The hairdresser spoke with The Sun Wednesday, but urged the newspaper not to publish her name.

"We'll look like idiots," she said. "We already look like idiots.

"It's pretty stupid. We went to collect our rent and all of a sudden we end up like this."

The young woman, meanwhile, faces three charges of bank robbery.

Moana Lemmon, 20, appeared in provincial court Wednesday.