Jan 23, 2015 3 min read

WAYNESBURG – A Waynesburg woman was charged Friday by state police in connection with an armed robbery almost two years ago at the Community Bank in Rogersville.

Jamie L. Burnfield, 38, of 307 Prison Road, was arraigned Friday before District Judge Lou Dayich on one count of criminal conspiracy to commit robbery. Burnfield was released on bond and faces a preliminary hearing Thursday.

Police said Burnfield admitted writing the note that was given to a teller during the March 19, 2013, robbery and owns a car fitting the description of one seen at the scene.

According to the criminal complaint, a person wearing a dark mask, sunglasses and dark blue-hooded sweatshirt entered the bank at 3:27 p.m. and handed a note to the teller stating it was an armed robbery. The robber said nothing to the teller and only pointed at the cash drawer, police said.

Because the person’s face was covered, the teller could not say whether the person was male or female. After the teller handed over “bait money,” the person left the bank and crossed Route 21 toward Bank Street in Rogersville, police said.

A witness who was driving by on Route 21 at the time told police he saw a person wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt and a mask get into the passenger seat of a silver or gray Pontiac Grand Am parked on Cherry Alley, police said. The car was driven by a woman with brown hair and blond highlights, he said.

An agent from the Federal Bureau of Investigation interviewed Burnfield, who drives a silver Grand Am, and she admitted writing the note used in the robbery at the request of another woman, who had come to her house the morning of the robbery and asked her to write what she would write if she were ever to rob a bank.

She said she left the note in her home and when she later returned the note and the other woman were gone.

In an interview with state police, Burnfield admitting writing the note but said it had been written several months before the robbery, police said. The other woman’s name was included in the criminal complaint; however, she has not been charged.

Burnfield told police she didn’t know whether the other woman had taken the note or if the woman had used her car the day of the robbery. She said the spare key to her car had been missing.

Police said Burnfield initially told them she wasn’t sure where she was the day of the robbery but later said she was at her parent’s house in the morning and in the early afternoon ran errands with her father.

Police said Burnfield told them she has never spoken to the woman about the robbery.

Police said they charged Burnfield based on her admitting to writing the note used in the robbery and the fact a vehicle matching the description of Burnfield’s was seen at the scene of the robbery.