Bank robbery suspect caught at casino

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- It turned out the Bag Lady Bandit had a little too much affection for the One-Armed Bandit, police say -- and that's what tripped her up last week, ending an alleged string of a dozen brazen bank robberies from the Sierra Gold Country to Silicon Valley.
The end of the road for Cathy Lynn Longley, the 39-year-old woman whom police suspect of knocking over supermarket banks since March, came this week at the Jackson Rancheria Casino, an Indian gaming mecca in the foothills east of Sacramento.
Longley spent one morning playing the slots there, officers said -- and then, as she walked through the lobby to leave, a sharp-eyed surveillance manager recognized her from news broadcasts about the Bag Lady Bandit.
"What she didn't consider is that if you are someone who is wanted, this is the last place you'd want to go, where we have more than 1,000 surveillance cameras and personnel trained to spot anything out of the ordinary," casino spokesman Rich Hoffman said. "In fact, it's the worst place for her to go."