What drove Crystal Little to a life of crime?
Kentucky woman claims cost of looking after ailing mother drove her to rob banks
Melinda Belleville stood outside a courtroom at Fayette District Court in Lexington, Ky., in 2012, shocked by what had just transpired.
It seemed like something off television, a plot similar to that of Breaking Bad. One of her closest friends — one to whom she felt like a surrogate mother — was in jail, being held on $30,000 (U.S.) bond. As she spoke to reporters, she couldn’t help but repeat her bewilderment, often through bursts of tears.
“I could never believe in a million years that she would be involved in something like this,” Belleville said. “I want everyone to know this is not Crystal Little.”
But it was Crystal Little, the same woman who worked for the University of Kentucky’s office of research integrity, an organization obsessed with rules and guidelines in the pursuit of “support(ing) the institution in promoting ethical conduct of research.” The same woman who, as a student at UK, worked as an editor for the Kentucky Kernel, earning it one of college journalism’s highest accolades — a Pacemaker Award — for reporting from Africa on the AIDS crisis. The same woman who helped raise her niece when her parents weren’t around, according to media reports. The same woman who served as the primary caregiver for her mother, who suffered from multiple sclerosis. In fact, caring for her mother is what she claims led her to rob four banks.
It began in June 2010, the 32-yearold told her former student paper from jail, barely two years into a 10year sentence.
Little had always been what she called “the fixer” of the family. Her mom was in a nursing home and suffered from multiple sclerosis, an incurable and often incapacitating disease.
Little helped as much as she could, but one obstacle loomed large, casting its shadow over everything else: she couldn’t afford to keep her mom
“I could never believe in a million years that she would be involved in something like this.” MELINDA BELLEVILLE FRIEND OF CRYSTAL LITTLE
in the home. Little hadn’t even begun working for the university yet when the nursing home contacted her.
She had two days to pay her mother’s bill, or the old woman would be on the streets, the Kernel reported.
“Her family considered her the one to fix everything or take care of everything,” Belleville later told the Herald-Leader.
She decided to do just that — take care of everything. She pulled on a pink cap, mirrored sunglasses and a surgical mask. She grabbed an unloaded David Model D-38 pistol. Before slipping into her gold Camry, she covered its licence plate with a pillowcase. Then, she drove to Forcht Bank on Southland Dr., just a few blocks from the campus where she’d soon begin working.
Though she said she felt sick during the entire drive, she approached the teller with a blue grocery bag and demanded $10,000. Jason Marshall, one of the bank tellers, led her to the vault and gave her the money. He said that Little saw more — much more — money in the vault, but didn’t alter her request. $10,000 would do.
Once back in the car, she remembers feeling the momentary need to vomit, she said.
She also remembers how easy it was to make $10,000 in order to keep her ailing mother in the nursing home.
The next time — about four months later — she visited a Fifth Third bank, just on the other side of the campus, and came away with $50,000. On Au- gust 31, 2011, about a year later, it was the American Founders Bank, much farther from campus. That robbery only netted $1,700.
Then, her mother died. The funeral cost $10,000, and Little said she used stolen money to pay for it. She also put a down payment on a new Jetta, which she planned to give to her niece. And now, she just wanted more. On July 28, 2012, Little was arrested about an hour after her fourth robbery — knocking off a PNC bank for $4,079.
She remembers the Lexington police knocking at the door. She didn’t know a PNC teller had slipped a tracking device into the bag during the robbery. She answered, as her niece cowered in the background. What did they need? “I think you know,” they said. “Yeah, I do,” she said. Once in the police car, she immedi- ately confessed.
Though she entered a plea of “not guilty,” she was indicted by a Fayette County grand jury in September 2012, WTVQ reported.
She’s currently serving four sentences — two five-year sentences for the robberies she committed without her pistol and two 10-year sentences for those she committed with the weapon — concurrently, which means her maximum time in jail is10 years.
If she gains early parole, she’ll have to pay restitution to the banks.
Ray Larson, the attorney who prosecuted Little, opposed “long-form newspaper articles” about Little, claiming they can create unjust sympathy for a criminal.
“She’s not the victim, she’s the bad guy,” Larson told the Kernel, adding that he would find it “disgusting” if Little didn’t have to pay restitution.
Little is up for parole in August.