A bystander helped officers capture a woman accused of robbing two banks in South Boston on Wednesday, according to authorities.
The woman was caught just after 11 a.m. Wednesday on Southampton Street, Boston police said.
When officers to the bank arrived, they were told a woman wearing a thin black hoodie, blue jeans and a white disposable surgical mask had robbed the bank and fled, according to police.
But a bystander flagged down officers on Father Songin Way, where he had stopped 38-year-old Miriam Dealmeida, police said.
Get New England news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NECN newsletters.
The man told officers that, while walking down Boston Street toward Andrew Station, he saw Dealmeida running from the bank's parking lot with "red smoke emitting from her hooded sweatshirt pocket," authorities said.
He then chased her down Dorchester Avenue onto Father Songin Way, where he restrained her, police said. The man wasn't identified.
The 38-year-old Boston woman was arrested on charges of unarmed bank robbery in that incident and a different bank robbery that took place several hours earlier, about 8:30 a.m., at East West Bank on Kneeland Street, police said.
At her arraignment in South Boston District Court Thursday, where a not guilty plea was entered on her behalf, a prosecutor said that, after her arrest, Dealmeida "essentially admitted to both of the robberies."
Her lawyer said she was dealing with mental illness and addiction issues and said it was possible if they played into that alleged admission: "Is she just agreeing to what investigators are saying?"
A judge ordered Dealmeida held on $2,500 bail.
