A man walked into a Pet Supplies Plus store in Beltsville, Maryland, grabbed a three-and-a-half-month-old tuxedo kitten named Magnolia, and carried her across the parking lot to a nearby PNC bank branch where he attempted to rob the place on Monday morning. Prince George's County police arrested him shortly after.
The sequence of events unfolded with the kind of absurdity that law enforcement rarely encounters. Magnolia, a young kitten available for adoption at the pet store, had caught the attention of a man who visited regularly over the previous two weeks, store employees told NBC Washington affiliate WRC. On Monday, with no staff nearby, he accessed the cat adoption area using a key and fled with the animal.
Once at the bank, the suspect asked the manager to hold Magnolia while he scribbled a note, then handed that note to a teller demanding cash, according to a Facebook post from Beltsville Community Cats, the rescue organization managing Magnolia's adoption. The robbery went nowhere. No injuries were reported, and no funds were taken.
Store manager Aaron Kurkowski described the moment to WRC: "He came in and saw none of my team was nearby the front and he just went right to her and ran right on out."
When a Pet Supplies Plus employee called to alert Stephanie Stullich of Beltsville Community Cats about the theft, she rushed to the store only to find police vehicles. "I thought, 'Wow, that's a heck of a response for a stolen cat,' but then I realized they all were going down to the bank," Stullich told WRC.
Magnolia was discovered safe in the bank manager's office, where the two had bonded during the ordeal, the rescue group said. Prince George's County police confirmed the cat was returned and declined to release the suspect's name or further details, citing an ongoing investigation.
Two days before her abduction, Magnolia had been featured on social media as an available adoption prospect. As of Monday, she remained unadopted but unharmed. Beltsville Community Cats invited interested adopters to reach out at [email protected], joking that Magnolia's "brief life of crime" was behind her and that her future would involve far less dangerous larceny: the theft of "hearts, treats, toys and cuddles."
Author James Rodriguez: "You can't write this stuff. A would-be robber turns a kitten into an accomplice, botches the job, and somehow makes everyone's day at the bank slightly better."
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