Jobless Mother Surrenders in Bank Robbery

This one’s like June Cleaver getting busted for stealing food from the Piggly Wiggly to feed the “Beav.”

A 39-year-old Oxnard woman walked into the Ventura FBI office last week and surrendered to authorities who had been searching for her as the prime suspect in a Jan. 12 bank robbery in Port Hueneme.

“She was unemployed and had fallen on hard times and was very remorseful,” said Special Agent Brent Robbins. “This is only the second time in my career someone has yanked at my heart strings that strong.”

Unable to pay her bills, Olga Horton, an out-of-work auditor and mother of two, allegedly held up a Washington Mutual Bank branch on Channel Islands Boulevard.

On the day of the heist, Horton waited patiently in line at the bank and then handed a teller a note asking for $10,000, Robbins said. She left with a small amount of cash stuffed into a plastic grocery bag, the agent said.

Horton fled to a relative’s home in Guadalajara, Mexico, but returned to Ventura County after her picture was published in local newspapers.

She never got a chance to spend the dough, because most of it was rendered worthless when a dye pack tucked into a bundle of bills exploded inside the grocery bag, Robbins said.

Horton, who has no prior criminal record, was being held without bail in federal custody. She faces a maximum of 20 years in prison, but could serve as few as two years.

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Sometimes a broken heart can make a man go a little nuts, authorities say.

A 62-year-old Newbury Park man was ordered last week to stand trial on felony charges of stalking and threatening one of his neighbors and wielding a tire iron at another.

Jack O’Halloran told police after his arrest last year that his wife had left him because he has a bad temper. Instead of continuing the anger-management classes he was enrolled in, O’Halloran spent months chasing his neighbors, officers said.

“I have no idea what’s wrong with him,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Stacy Ratner. “I mean, that’s what’s frightening about the case; we really don’t know his motivation.”

O’Halloran, who is not in custody, is accused of using his sport utility vehicle to follow a couple and their children home from a pizza parlor last August and then challenging the father to a fight.

“He told the guy he was a dead man and said, ‘The next time you see me be prepared to die,’ ” Ratner said.

He also is charged in connection with an incident in March 1998, when a 16-year-old neighbor girl told police she was threatened by O’Halloran as he waved a tire iron in her face.

During a search of his house and vehicle, police found binoculars, a camera and three journals in which they say O’Halloran had taken notes on vehicle descriptions and logged hundreds of license plate numbers.

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They don’t prepare for plane crashes or pileups on a freeway, but Community Emergency Response Team members trained at the Simi Valley Police Department are darned sure what to do during an earthquake.

The program teaches residents how to rescue people who are trapped in rubble, provide first aid and contain small problems with hazardous materials, such as how to react when a can of paint thinner falls off a shelf in a garage and spills.

Basic psychology, fire control and team management are also taught, along with where to go and what to do first when the earth starts moving.

Simi police were the first agency in the county to start the program, which they did six years ago after the city suffered millions of dollars in damage during the 1994 Northridge quake. Four more cities followed suit.

“Neighbors were trying to pull together in the streets and cul-de-sacs, but they didn’t have a lot of training that could be used to help out across the city,” said Randy White, a Police Department spokesman.

So far, more than 350 men and women across the city have been trained. A new class is scheduled to start Feb. 23. Call the department for details.

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Holly J. Wolcott can be reached at 653-7581 or Holly.Wolcott@latimes.com.