Tuesday, May 12, 2009

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Mother, son charged with Mother's Day robbery

WHITMAN, Mass. -- A local mother and son are accused of robbing a bank and a 7-Eleven, one of those crimes committed on Mother's Day.  

Police said 24-year-old Timothy O'Rourke wore a cloth mask on his face. He took two dollars from a 7-Eleven customer and then got cash from the clerk.

Police said O'Rourke's mother Lorraine was his partner in crime. He rode off on a bike to join her waiting in a car. The bike was stolen as well, according to police.

"It's a very surprising robbery, especially on Mother's Day. It's not normally how most people spend mother's day with their family," said Chief Christine May-Stafford, of the Whitman Police Department.

The mother son team was caught quickly and connected to the robbery of an Abington bank three weeks before.

Investigators said Lorraine O'Rourke cased the bank and then sent her son in to rob the place.

"It's alleged they both have a drug problem," said Dep. Chief Christopher Cutter, of the Abington Police Department. "The mother was not providing obviously proper guidance for her son."

The family kept their crime spree close to home. The Abington bank is just down the street from their apartment there and this 7-Eleven in Whitman is down the street from where they used to live.

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