The adorable, panda-colored kitten who went viral last month after being used in an attempted bank robbery in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., has been rescued from her very short life of crime.
Sweet 3-month-old Magnolia has been adopted by two loving parents who have another kitten for her to play with.
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A man walked into Pet Supplies Plus on Baltimore Avenue in Beltsville July 13 and soon after ran out clutching the kitten now known as Magnolia, security video shows.
He ran straight for the PNC Bank in the same shopping center, witnesses said.
He must have cased the pet store better than the bank. Prince George’s County police quickly took the suspect into custody.
Employees at the pet store said he had been coming in almost daily for weeks, always making a beeline for the kitten.
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Beltsville Community Cats received 21 applications to adopt Magnolia after her story made international news.
“Once we had Magnolia back safe and sound, her story turned from a potential tragedy into one that entertained millions of people all across the world,” said Stephanie Stullich of Beltsville Community Cats. “Everyone seemed to have a one-liner – from those who claimed that ‘Magnolia was the mastermind’ behind the attempted robbery to those who responded, ‘No, Magnolia is innocent!’”
Stullich heard from the store about the cat-napping that morning, according to a news release from BCC. They told her someone used a key hanging nearby to open the cat adoption area, so she drove over.
“Immediately saw all of these police cars, and I thought, ‘Wow, that’s a heck of a response for a stolen cat,’ but then I realized they all were going down to the bank,” she said in the news release. “[…] They came back out a few minutes later and said, ‘Yes, there is a cat inside the bank.’ Apparently, he went into the bank with the cat in his arms and he walked up to a bank employee and said, ‘Can you hold this?’ And then he wrote a note and handed it to a bank teller, and it said, essentially, give me all your cash.”
