seniors committing crimes

By Rick McCann
Blue RAM Media/Gulf Coast News

May 31, 2025

MOBILE Ala. Many senior citizens are living out their golden years enjoying family and friends, traveling, experiencing new things, playing golf, and doing all of those things that one might expect a retired person to do in their retirement years.

But there are a growing number of seniors who have taken on a new career, a new life, and many are finding a new home to spend the rest of their life in prison.

Nationwide, for more than a decade, psychologists, criminologists, and law enforcement experts have explored and investigated the steady increase of senior citizens leaving behind a life of service, of normalcy, and their legacy for a life of crime and we’re not talking about the little old lady who slips a handful of cosmetic jewelry in her purse at the big box store or the elderly man who gets caught driving drunk.

While some elderly people have been caught selling their prescription painkillers, such as hydrocodone or oxycodone to make ends meet, others have taken on all new careers in distribution and sales of illegal narcotics.

In recent years:
An elderly woman was caught attempting to smuggle cocaine into the U.S. hidden in her underwear.

A 74-year-old woman in a wheelchair was arrested for her alleged involvement in a heroin trafficking operation.

A 74-year-old woman was arrested for cultivating marijuana plants, which her son allegedly sold.

An 80-year-old man was arrested as a serial bank robber.

Amber Royce, a 67-year-old retired librarian, a mother of five, and a grandmother of ten grandchildren, was arrested in Arizona for trafficking methamphetamine and in California, Anita Baker, 70, recently was charged as a kingpin in the drug trade and police believe that she and one of her four sons have been major drug dealers for over twenty years!

Closer to home, a Birmingham senior was charged with distribution of cocaine, and in Mobile, police charged Roy Powell, 72, with armed robbery after pointing a gun at a man and stealing his backpack.

Earlier this month, Michael Jerome Elder, age 50, was sentenced today to 180 months in prison after entering a guilty plea to a count of Distribution of Child Pornography.

64-year-old Ralph Pollack of Mobile had been on the run since 2017 while wanted by the police in the death of a Mobile woman before being arrested in Florida in early May.

On May 9^th, 2025, a Foley man identified as 72-year-old Victor Fernandez was arrested after intentionally hitting a University of South Alabama police officer with his vehicle and then fleeing the scene.

On Thursday, May 8^th, 2025, police were called to the Century Bank on Cottage Hill Road at around 4:30 p.m. on a complaint that someone was trying to pass a forged document. When the police arrived and attempted to restrain Elema Helm, 74, of Gulfport Mississippi for questioning, she assaulted the officers and resisted arrest.
Helm has been charged with possession of a forged instrument and resisting arrest and booked into the Mobile jail.

A murder-for-hire plot in Baldwin County was uncovered by law enforcement and multiple people were arrested including sisters who were convicted in May 2025 and sentenced to prison.
Judy Owen, 61, and Mitzy Smith, 54, of Fairhope, AL, were found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder for hire, transfer of a firearm in furtherance of a felony, and murder for hire.
The judge sentenced Judy Owen to 120 months in prison, Sandra Grimes to 70 months in prison, and Jessica Montgomery to 60 months in prison for their roles in the conspiracy.

Robert Sigler III who is in his sixties and known to be a career thief and familiar to law enforcement throughout South Alabama is once again a wanted man after committing several retail thefts in Daphne and throughout the area.
Sigler has been arrested numerous times for similar crimes.

On any given day, local jails in Alabama and nationwide are booking dozens of senior citizens into jails on a wide array of charges, many are very serious and involve violence.

In April, police were called to the Mobile Extended Stay, located at 1520 Matzenger Drive after they received a call about a person being assaulted and injured after the driver intentionally struck them with their vehicle. After an investigation, the police arrested Mary Margaret Hardy, 66, and booked her into the metro jail.

In Semmes, 64-year-old Russell Smith was arrested on five counts of possession of child pornography after taking his cellphone into an AT&T store for repairs and the technician found the pictures on his phone.

Just outside of the City of Cincinnati, Frank Howard, 68, was the kingpin of a drug trafficking ring that was in business for more than five years throughout the Ohio valley.
And during the same time, another senior citizen just across the state line in Indiana was also making some extra money, selling heroin.
Ray Allen West, 67, was arrested after officers found approximately 72.8 grams of fentanyl.

Armed robberies committed by senior citizens are also on the rise locally and across the country.
Just recently, two seniors were involved in separate and unrelated bank robberies in Mobile.

In March, police responded to the Family Security Credit Union just east of Mobile Regional Airport, handed a stickup note to the teller, and showed a handgun.

Mobile police and FBI quickly responded to the area and were able to capture Joseph Derrick Nelson, 67, of Moss Point, Miss., who now faces a charge of first-degree robbery.

Less than a month later, police responded to another robbery committed by a senior citizen, this time it happened at the PNC bank branch located at 2901 Springhill Ave.
Police and investigators again were able to quickly identify the man responsible for the robbery and arrested sixty-three-year-old Lionel Clinard Harris.
Harris is charged with robbery and kidnapping because he also held a security officer at gunpoint.

There are many reasons why this trend continues to grow and why many senior citizens are risking their lives literally, going down this pathway of crime, violence, and danger.

In part two, we will hear what the experts are saying and what those seniors who have been caught by the police have said about their decisions.

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