‘Grandma Bandit,' now known to be a ‘Grampa' killed after police chase

Bill Rankin and Rhonda Cook

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

9:04 p.m. Friday, May 27, 2011

The puffy-faced, middle-aged woman at the CVS checkout counter opened a black purse and showed the clerk a rusty gun. She said she was sorry, that she was dying of cancer and had no choice.

 

Atlanta Police Department Surveillance video showed this suspect, described as a 50- to 60-year-old woman, who is wanted in the robbery of multiple drug stores.

 

“Don’t be scared,” the woman said, according to police. “Just give me all the money in the cash drawer.”

Roxanne Taylor's  string of drugstore robberies -- daring heists that earned her the nickname "Grandma Bandit" -- ended Friday morning after she was fatally shot following a police chase. It was unclear if she died by her own hand or was killed by police, who fired multiple times after hearing a gunshot, authorities said. The DeKalb County Medical Examiner's Office could not be reached Friday, and authorities were unable to confirm whether Taylor indeed  had a terminal disease.

Authoritieswere however able to make another determination about the bandit later Friday. In a tersely worded statement, DeKalb police spokeswoman Mekka Parish wrote

Greetings,

Positive identification has been made on the person involved in todays incident on North Druid Hills. After further investigation detectives have determined the person believed to be a female suspect in fact is a male.

His name is Roxanne Taylor, a 57 year old man.

No additional information is available.

Taylor did not look like the typical armed  robber -- the jittery young male with a stocking cap or hoodie pulled down low.

Instead, the 57-year-old  holder of a helicopter pilot's license lived in a trendy loft near the state Capitol. Wearing dark sunglasses and a black University of Georgia ball cap, he had walked up to the checkout counters of at least seven metro pharmacies in recent weeks, exposed the handgun and demanded cash, police said.

There were differing opinions all along on whether the bandit was a woman or a man dressed as a woman.

An employee of a Rite Aid pharmacy on Ponce de Leon that was robbed May 14 described Taylor as a skinny man with large cheek bones who was dressed as a woman and who walked around the store for about a half hour before coming inside, an Atlanta police report said.

It was during a May 20 robbery of a CVS on Cheshire Bridge Road that Taylor told the cashier he had cancer, another police report said.

Ron Hunter, a criminology professor at Georgia Gwinnett College, said it is extremely rare for middle-aged women to be committing violent crimes. "And people who do armed robberies during the daylight hours are a little more bolder, more brazen -- not a 58-year-old female.”

Asked Friday night if there was any further explanation on how they determined Taylor was a man, Parish said, "We know the legal name was Roxanne. All indications we had early on was that he appeared to be female; it wasn't until further investigation that we determined he was a man."

Hunter, a former Tallahassee police sergeant, said he is eager to learn whether Taylor actually had cancer. "Someone who commits this kind of crime is also someone who will most likely lie," he said.

But if Taylor did have a terminal disease, that could explain the reckless conduct, Hunter said.

"If she was broke, she knows she doesn't have much time left and she just doesn't care," he said. "There is also 'suicide by cop.' It's someone who's desperate and wants to end their life and thinks they can't do it themselves so they'll put themselves in a situation where they force someone else to do it."

According to police, Taylor struck at least four pharmacies in Atlanta and three in DeKalb, taking $89 to $350. "Just give me the money and be quiet," he told a clerk during a robbery Tuesday at the Rite Aid pharmacy on Howell Mill Road, an incident report said.

This week,  surveillance photos showing Taylor inside a number of pharmacies were made public.

On Friday morning, as Taylor sat in a gold Jeep Liberty at a Wendy's drive-through on Piedmont Road, he was spotted by someone who had seen the photos and notified Atlanta police. Officers tried to stop Taylor after he left the restaurant, but Taylor fled, leading police on a chase up Interstate 85 northbound, authorities said.

Taylor took the North Druid Hills Road exit, hit another car, then was confronted by APD officers, who had been notified he could be armed and dangerous, APD spokesman Carlos Campos said.

The officers who had been pursuing Taylor heard a gunshot and returned fire, hitting Taylor a number of times, DeKalb spokeswoman Parish said. Neither of the officers, whose names have not been disclosed, were injured. Taylor could be seen slumped over in the Jeep car, its driver's side window blown out, as police inspected the crime scene.

Court records show Taylor was having financial problems last fall. In September, the company that owned Mattress Lofts, where he lived, began the process of evicting him. It also filed a motion in Fulton County Magistrate Court, saying he owed $2,133.

According to business records, Taylor once worked for Atlanta Aviation Graphics in an office-and-warehouse complex near Grant Park. But the property owner said Friday the company left the space at least two years ago.

Federal Aviation Administration records show that Taylor received a pilot's license in 1977 and was certified to fly helicopters in 2001. In 2006, Taylor updated his FAA medical certificate, which is required every five years.

Staff writers Mike Morris and Kristi E. Swartz contributed to this article.

LINK TO PHOTOS: 

http://projects.ajc.com/gallery/view/metro/dekalb/i-85-shooting/