After two weeks of pursuit, police caught up with the woman dubbed the "Blonde Bandit."
Police took 26-year-old Stephanie Schwab into custody after a three-car crash on the Beltway Wednesday afternoon.
Fairfax County, Va., police had been tailing her vehicle after they received a report of an attempted robbery at the BB&T bank on Old Dominion Drive in McLean. A woman passed a note to a teller and demanded money but fled in a blue Ford Escape without getting any.
An officer spotted the car on Interstate 495 and followed it into Montgomery County, Md., where Schwab was involved in a crash wtih a Suburban and a Chevy Impala at Old Georgetown Road, police said. She fled on foot but was caught by the officer from Fairfax County, police said.
Schwab is suspected in at least two prior bank robberies, a carjacking at Tysons Galleria, and an attempted carjacking in Baltimore County.
On Thanksgiving Day in Maryland, the 5-foot-6 Schwab allegedly asked for and received a ride from a woman in a Baltimore County Safeway parking lot. Once inside the woman's car, the suspect allegedly pulled a knife and ordered the victim out. The victim resisted, trying to grab the knife, and was wounded. The carjacking was not successful.
Schwab also was connected to a carjacking at Tysons Galleria on Nov. 19. Schwab allegedly posed as a college student and asked a woman to give her a ride to get some gas. Down the road, she pulled a knife on the woman, ordered her out and took the woman's 2003 Acura, police said.
Schwab is also the suspect in a Nov. 18 bank robbery in Prince William County and a Nov. 22 bank robbery in Springfield.
Fairfax County police are investigating with the FBI.
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