'Barbie Bandit' Laughs About Bank Robbery, Says She Had 'Inside Man'

ATLANTA – A young woman dubbed the "Barbie Bandit" after she and a friend were caught on surveillance tape apparently robbing a Georgia bank laughed about it in an interview aired Friday, but admitted "some of the stuff we did was pretty ignorant."

Heather Johnston, then 19, said the idea of robbing a bank started as a joke.

"It's crossed a lot of people's minds," she told ABC's "Good Morning America." But few people would do what Johnston and a friend are accused of doing next.

Police say Johnston and Ashley Miller, 18, worked with a bank teller to rob a Bank of America branch in Acworth of $11,000 on Feb. 27. The three were arrested a few days later on felony theft charges after surveillance tape was released showing the girls in sunglasses, T-shirts and jeans laughing during the robbery. All three have since been released on bond.

Johnston said the teller told her what to do and even what to write in the robbery note. She said she wasn't thinking about the impact it might have. After all, she said, "We had an inside man."

Things didn't go quite as planned, though. The two failed to get wigs, then ended up at the wrong bank branch, she said. When they got to the right branch and the teller's window, the money started getting away from them, Johnston said.

"He started throwing it, and it was like going everywhere," she said. "So I was pushing it. Ashley was putting it, throwing it in the bag."

She laughed as she described what they did they next: "Go straight to the mall." Surveillance tapes show them at an upscale hair salon, where they apparently got highlights. Police have said they went on a shopping spree and gave some money to homeless people.

"Some of the stuff we did was pretty ignorant," Johnston told ABC.

Miller's mother, Joy Miller, said shortly after the arrests that her daughter was sorry for what happened and just fell in with the wrong crowd. She said the two girls made some bad decisions.

Johnston's mother, Lisa Johnston, wept as she told ABC how she had hoped to instill positive values in her children by doing something special with them every day.

"I hoped that would instill and pretty much guarantee me wonderful adults," she said. "But I guess there's no guarantee."