A Provo woman has been arrested after attempting to rob her former employer — an assisted living facility — and making off with two employees’ backpacks early Wednesday morning.
A certified nursing assistant at Elk Ridge Assisted Living in Utah County received a call from someone who was outside the building and trying to get in at 3:24 a.m. on Wednesday morning, according to a Utah County Sheriff’s news release.
That‘s common, according to the release, and the nursing assistant and another employee assumed one of their residents had walked outside.
But when the nursing assistant opened the door, she saw a person — dressed in black clothing and wearing black cloth over her face — pointing a handgun.
The other employee locked herself into a room and called the police, according to the release.
Meanwhile, the woman in black ordered the nursing assistant to take her to the main office, where medications are stored. She then gave the nursing assistant a can of shaving cream and “ordered her to spray the shaving cream on a security camera in the office,” the release said.
She did, and the intruder then demanded that the nursing assistant unlock a medication security box. But the nursing assistant couldn’t open it because she didn’t have the keys on her at the time, according to the center’s owner, Chris Hermansen.
“The suspect said [she] would wait, but then she acted frustrated,” the release stated. Then, the intruder grabbed the two employees’ backpacks and ran out of the building.
No one was harmed during the episode.
The two staff members are “shaken up, but they’re doing all right,” Hermansen said on Thursday.
When the police arrived, they met with Hermansen, who retrieved security footage from around the facility and the main office.
He and police reviewed the footage — including video taken from the camera that had been sprayed with shaving cream — and determined that the woman looked and acted like an employee who had been fired six weeks earlier.
The woman had worked as a nursing assistant and a cook at the facility for a few months, Hermansen said.
Detectives found the 44-year-old suspect at her home in Provo later that day, according to Utah County sheriff’s Sgt. Spencer Cannon. She admitted to the robbery, according to the release.
Before her arrest, the woman had used one of the staff members’ stolen debit cards, to the tune of $2,000. She had made those transactions with Facebook Pay, and sent the money to an account in her maiden name. Detectives also found a check for $500 that belongs to one of the staff members.
“The suspect admitted she wrote that check,” the release states.
While searching the house, detectives found the can of shaving cream that had been used to obscure the security camera, methamphetamine, prescription drugs and drug paraphernalia.
The woman was booked into the Utah County jail on suspicion of a handful of felonies: aggravated robbery, use or threatened use of a weapon, fraudulent financial transactions, forgery, possession of a dangerous weapon by a restricted person.
Her cash-only bail has been set at $50,000.
Police said she has convictions in Utah for crimes including theft and fraud, and drug-related crimes.
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