40-yr-old woman missing , found locked in bank. She had a plan

Shillong: A 40-year-old woman, reported missing for two days, was found on Monday in a Meghalaya bank, starving and dehydrated. police said, that she was trying to pull off a bank heist but got a couple of things wrong. One was that every fourth Saturday in a month is a bank holiday.

Isabella Marboh, who was sent to a hospital after she was found was formally placed under arrest by the police in Shillong on Tuesday.

When she entered the bank a short distance from her house on Friday evening (Jun-25) Marboh thought she had the perfect plan. On her visits to the bank, Marboh had apparently noticed that no one went into the bank's server room.

The plan was to hide in this room when it was time for the bank to close for the day, get into the room where the bank kept the money and take all the cash she could carry when the bank reopened the next day.

On Friday, police said, she left home telling her family that she was stepping out to buy vegetables. Instead, she went to the bank, ostensibly to deposit some money and quietly parked herself in the server room.

When the bank closed, she went straight for the strong room. But it turned out that she did not have the requisite tools. She tried to prise it open with a pair of scissors but didn't get far.

A police officer who spoke on conditions of anonymity said they did find some tools used by carpenters in her hand bag but did not elaborate. There is no clarity on how she expected to break into the strong



room.

It is around this time, the officer said, that Isabella Marboh figured that the CCTV camera would have recorded her. So she broke them without realising that the footage was still safe.

Marboh planned to leave the bank the following morning when it opened. But June 26 was a bank holiday; all second and fourth Saturdays are.

She had brought a stock of chocolate bars and ORS fluid to keep her going for the planned overnight stay in the bank. She had to make her stock last through the weekend.

By the time the bank manager opened the premises on Monday morning, she was 'dehydrated and weak' and the CCTV cameras were broken. The manager called up the police and her husband, who had been desperately looking for his wife for two days and had floated multiple appeals to find her on social media.

According to news website East Mojo, announcements to seek help to locate the missing woman were also made via the public address system in Bishnupur. She didn't respond to them.

Shillong city superintendent of police Vivek Syiem told HT on phone that the woman has been sent to the Shillong Youth Centre quarantine centre where she is awaiting her Covid test report.

The SP said of all the angles that he could think of in case of a woman reported missing, an attempted bank heist certainly wasn't one. 'She has been booked under various offences which include criminal trespass, burglary, breaking and entry amongst others and we are awaiting the test report before producing her in court.