Female Robber Apprehended Outside Atlanta

Smyrna, Ga.--The woman wanted in a string of armed jewelry store robberies across the Southeast was arrested Friday, less than a week after her latest robbery made national news and generated a flood of tips for the FBI.

Abigail Lee KempAccording to an official release the FBI circulated on Saturday, the suspect has been identified as 24-year-old Abigail Lee Kemp.

Agents from the FBI’s field office in Atlanta, who are assisting the FBI Jacksonville (Fla.) division with the investigation, arrested Kemp without incident in the Atlanta suburb of Smyrna, not far from where she reportedly attended high school.

An individual who was with Kemp also was taken into FBI custody, but the bureau is not releasing the identity of the second person or many details about the arrests, citing the ongoing investigation in the case.

Kemp’s solo crime spree began in August, when allegedly robbed a Zales Outlet store in Dawsonville, Ga. at gunpoint. She went on to hit up four more stores by herself, the latest in Mebane, N.C. on Jan. 4, netting more than $4 million in merchandise.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, she also was an accomplice in an April robbery in Woodstock, Ga., working alongside the same male suspect who, authorities believe, aided her in a few of her robberies.

He is described as a black man in his late 30s or early 40s, approximately 6 feet tall and 250 pounds. It is not known if he was the individual arrested Friday along with Kemp.

The case of the female armed robber generated widespread media attention both in and outside of the jewelry industry from the start, partially due to its man-bites-dog nature.

While armed robberies in the jewelry industry certainly aren’t uncommon--and rarely make the national news--it is unusual for someone to attempt one by themselves.

What’s more, never does a woman go into stores by herself and tie up people at gunpoint; when news of the lone female armed robber first broke, Jewelers’ Security Alliance President John J. Kennedy said, “It’s extremely unusual. In my 23 years here I have never seen a lone female robber commit an armed robbery.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Florida is set to handle the prosecution of this case.