MEMPHIS, TN -
(WMC-TV) – They looked like grandmothers, but two women recently convicted for a violent purse snatching have lengthy criminal records.
Gwendolyn McMillion was working at Royal Furniture at Perimeter Mall when the manager of a mattress store was dragged by a car with 65-year-old Dorothy Gunn and 55-year-old Debra Cooper inside.
The women went into the mattress store and one of them pretended to be a customer while the other one walked behind the counter and stole the manager's purse. The manager ran after the women.
Gunn was in the driver's seat and Cooper was in the passenger seat. The manager put her arm inside the window and Copper rolled it up, trapping the manager. They took off and dragged the manager 100 feet.
The manager got road burns on one side of her body.
Both defendants have lengthy records and have been in and out of prison. Gunn's record dates back 30 years for things like shoplifting, theft and robbery.
The two women may have looked harmless, but they're anything but.
"Compared to the average age of our defendants – it's up there," said District Attorney Amy Weirich. "Some crimes are harder to commit the older you get, but other crimes, like trying to walk in and steal people's purses from behind a counter and get way with it - you can do that well into your 60's and 70's unfortunately."
Despite their lengthy records, Cooper and Gunn kept getting out of jail because most of their crimes were misdemeanors. But now, with convictions for reckless aggravated assault and aggravated robbery they are facing years behind bars.
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They looked like grandmothers, but two women recently convicted for a violent purse snatching have lengthy criminal records.
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