Woman charged in Waukesha bank robbery
A 36-year-old Waukesha woman told police that after she robbed a city bank Tuesday, she walked three miles to the nearest Kohl’s and bought some new clothes — the same ones she was wearing when she was arrested in Milwaukee two days later.
Melissa K. Monreal was charged Friday with robbery of a financial institution. Her teenage daughter and sister identified her to police the next day, after Monreal’s picture had been posted by Waukesha police. According to the complaint: Monreal left her home shortly before 5 p.m. Tuesday and went to the nearby Waukesha State Bank at 151 E. St. Paul Ave. wearing her teenage daughter’s boots and sweatshirt, turned inside out because there was a name on it. She handed the teller a note she had scrawled at home that said it was a robbery, took cash from the teller, said thank you and left.
Monreal ran across the parking lot to the bus station, where she used the bathroom to take off the hat and sweatshirt she was wearing, before walking to the Kohl’s on E. Moreland Blvd. There, she told police, she flushed her note down the toilet, counted her take — either $620 or $650. She bought some clothes, changed into them in the restroom and then took a bus to Mo’s Irish Pub in Wauwatosa.
After getting picked up by her boyfriend and his friend, they spent the night partying at a Motel 6. At her boyfriend’s family’s home the next day, relatives brought up news of the bank robbery, and Monreal denied the surveillance photo was her. Privately, she told her boyfriend “it was a spur of the moment thing.”
On Thursday, police found Monreal at a Milwaukee residence and arrested her without incident. She made her initial court appearance Friday, where bail was set at $50,000. A preliminary hearing was set for Dec. 22.