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“I’ve had enough bank robberies to last a lifetime.” Molly Celani
Little did anyone expect to see the Granville Main Street TD Bank get robbed for a second time in less than a week, certainly not one of the customers conducting business at the counter Saturday morning.
Molly Celani said she was at the counter completing a transaction while husband Tony stopped next door at Scotties.
“He came up to the teller next to me and he made it known that he wanted money,” Celani said just hours after the holdup. He was not loud like a movie bank robber, he simply presented a note demanding money which also said he had a gun.
The bank robber, described as around 6’ tall, white or light skinned, with a slight build and a beard was wearing a dark jacket with a light colored, likely white, hooded sweatshirt underneath when he walked into the bank just before noon.
Witnesses said the clerk spoke to the man and told him to pull down his hood, but he ignored her and went up to the window to Celani’s left furthest from the front doors. Celani said she wasn’t frightened or scared because there wasn’t time, the man was in the bank for only a short time before he left with an as yet undisclosed amount of money.
“I didn’t get a good look at him, I could only see him out of my (peripheral) vision; I only saw him from the side,” she said.
Other witnesses leaving the bank either declined to speak with the Sentinel or said as employees they could not comment.
When a man with a hood on enters a bank, especially after the Tuesday morning robbery believed to Granville’s first in decades, Celani said she could just tell something was amiss.
“It was just something, or somehow, different,” she said. “I can’t describe it, but you knew something was going on.”
Police say the second robbery could be linked to the first and are asking the public to take a look a security camera photos and ask if they know a couple that looks like the two suspects.
Police said they are not certain the two are linked or that the robbers are working together, it is just one of the leads the Granville Village Police have run down over the past week. Celani said she thought everyone involved did a great job in a bad situation. “The bank people did very well, they were very well prepared and the police were on the scene very quickly,” Celani said.
After the robber left the bank Celani said she was kept in with all others who were in the bank at the time and she was kept for about an hour afterwards. Due to a recent surgery she was allowed to return home, where she later spoke with police.
Celani said she had been volunteering at the Slate Valley Museum Tuesday morning when the first robbery occurred and the museum locked down. “I’ve had enough bank robberies to last a lifetime, “ Celani said.
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