KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Pleasant Hill police officers serving a warrant at the residence of a septuagenarian bank-robbery suspect Wednesday afternoon found a body instead.
Officers with the Pleasant Hill Police Department were serving an arrest warrant around 2 p.m. in the 1550 block of Eagle Drive at the residence of Bonnie Gooch, who had failed to appear for a court hearing.
Gooch, 78, was arrested in April and charged with one count of stealing or attempting to steal from a financial institution, a Class B felony.
Upon knocking, the door opened partially and officers entered the residence at which time they found a woman’s body in a rear bedroom.
The body was sent to Frontier Forensics in Kansas City, Kansas, for examination and the official identification remains pending.
“At this time, foul play is not suspected and there is no public safety concern,” Pleasant Hill police said on Facebook.
Gooch, who had been released on her own recognizance after her arrest, was scheduled to appear at a case review Monday in Cass County Circuit Court.
She allegedly robbed Goppert Financial Bank in Pleasant Hill on April 6.
A bench warrant for her arrest was issued Tuesday.
Gooch was previously arrested for robbing a Bank of the West branch in Lee’s Summit in January 2020 and had a prior conviction for bank robbery in California in 1977.
She pleaded guilty in 2021 to the 2020 bank robbery and was sentenced to five years in prison, but a judge suspended imposition of the sentence and instead placed her on three years of supervised probation.
Her probation ended after only nine months in November 2021, according to court records.
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