ATLANTA – The mother of a 19-year-old arrested in a bank theft scheme said Monday that her daughter isn't a bandit, she just fell in with the wrong crowd and made a bad choice.
Joy Miller said her daughter, Ashley Miller, is sorry for what she did.
Ashley Miller and Heather Johnston, both 19, were videotaped wearing sunglasses and laughing as they appeared to rob a Bank of America in upscale Acworth on Feb. 27. Police also arrested a bank teller and another man in connection with the theft, saying the heist appeared to be an inside job. Miller and Johnston remained jailed Monday morning.
"I want [people] to know that her and Heather both are not bandits," Joy Miller told ABC's "Good Morning America" Monday." "They're little girls that made a bad choice."
Johnston's father, Edward Johnston, has said his family was in shock.
"God gives us free will and it's up to us what we do with it," he said. "Any adult has to make decisions and live with them — good, bad or indifferent."
Dubbed the "Barbie Bandits" by some Atlanta media, the teens were captured by a surveillance camera handing a bank teller a note then casually waiting for money as if "it's all fun and games to them," said Cobb County Police spokesman Wayne Delk.
Authorities have not said how much money the girls took, but Delk said it is "considerable." After a brief car chase, they were arrested about 20 miles from the bank.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox