In northern Virginia, police say they’re looking for a woman who’s been holding up banks while chatting on her phone.

“This is the first time that I can recall where we’ve had a crime committed while the person was using a cell phone,” Loudoun County sheriff’s spokesman Kraig Troxell told The Washington Post in a story published Friday. “The question would be whether anyone is on the other end of the line or not.”

Investigators believe the woman has hit four Wachovia bank branches in recent weeks in Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William counties.

In three of those bank jobs, she was talking on a cell phone, while showing the teller a box with a holdup note attached to it. In the most recent holdup, on November 4, in Ashburn, the robber showed the teller a gun.

Investigators say they’re not sure if she’s actually talking to someone on the phone or just pretending. They also won’t speculate on why she’s chosen only Wachovia branches.

If she’s from northern New Mexico, I absolutely believe she’s talking to someone. I know women who take their cell phones along to the bathroom.

Update:
Authorities early Tuesday arrested a northern Virginia woman suspected of robbing suburban Washington banks while talking on her cell phone, police said.

Candice Rose Martinez was taken into custody around 3:35 a.m. in Centreville, a suburb west of Washington, said Maryann Jennings of the Fairfax County, Virginia, Police Department. Two men also were detained.

Further update:

Zounds. I could have run into her in a local store! Turns out her father lives about 5 miles from me.