Age hasn’t slowed 80-year-old California burglar whose rap sheet goes back to 1955

Age hasn’t slowed 80-year-old California burglar

LOS ANGELES — Doris Thompson hasn’t let age slow her down. At 80, she’s still ransacking and burglarizing medical offices.

Thompson, whose criminal record stretches back to 1955, pleaded guilty Wednesday to taking about $1,400 from the Children’s Medical Group in suburban Torrance.

During the hearing, the amiable 5-foot-3 woman who ties her gray pigtails with white bows, thanked the judge for letting her serve her time in state prison rather than county jail.

She also called Deputy District Attorney Paulette Paccione “sweetie” and told the judge “God bless you” as he sentenced her to three years behind bars.

“She just likes to steal,” Paccione said Thursday. “It’s just been her occupation, I guess, for years and years and years.”

Thompson, who has used 27 aliases during her arrests over the years, was being held without bail under the name of Doris Ann Gamble pending her removal to a state lockup.

A call to her public defender, Bennett Mori, seeking comment was not immediately returned.

Thompson, whose first recorded arrest was for disturbing the peace in 1955, has made a career out of stealing from medical offices up and down the state. Once, she cracked a safe in a Los Angeles medical office.

On another job, she took a plastic urine sample cup that someone had filled with $2 in change.

“She doesn’t miss a thing,” Paccione said.

Thompson’s method involves going into the offices with screwdrivers, chisels and pry tools in her purse then hiding out in a restroom until everybody leaves for the day.

Thompson had been out on parole for only two months when she hit the Torrance office. She was arrested on Feb. 4 after investigators looking at surveillance tape recognized her from an old Beverly Hills wanted poster.

At her arraignment the next day, she made sure to tell officials, “I do my time like a lady,” court records indicate.

Thompson occasionally has tried to explain her life of crime.

“She did mention one time that she liked medical offices because she thought doctors were cheats and that’s why they keep money in their drawer,” Paccione said.

After her latest arrest, she told authorities she wouldn’t have to do all this “nonsense” if the government gave people more money.